With the long-pending election to the Speaker post in the Maharashtra Assembly expected soon, senior Congressman from Pune district and three-time MLA Sangram Thopte has emerged the front runner.
The post has been lying vacant since last February after Nana Patole quit following his appointment as Maharashtra Congress president. After much procrastination since then, a delegation from the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition of the Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had last week requested Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to hold the Speaker’s election on March 9 or any other date which the latter thought fit given that the budget session of the State legislature is currently under way.
According to Maharashtra Congress sources, while names like those of senior Congressman and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and present Tribal Affairs Minister K.C. Padavi, a seven-term MLA, were being floated, it is Mr. Thopte — a three-time MLA from Bhor in Pune district — who is likely to be given the post.
