5 BJP allies, 4 Congress MPs get front row seats in Lok Sabha
Modi government has rewarded five key allies with front row seats in the Lok Sabha
The Narendra Modi government has rewarded five key allies including food processing minister Chirag Paswan with coveted front row seats in the Lok Sabha while the 99 member-strong Congress party has got three MPs in addition to Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, in the first row. Trinamool Congress, an INDIA bloc ally, however, has “distanced” itself from the Congress and have opted for seats that are “equidistant” from both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
An internal circular on seating arrangement has been issued by the Lok Sabha secretariat on November 29. Based on the inputs from the parties, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s office has decided the seats or division numbers of MPs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh and home minister Amit Shah will have the first three seats in the Treasury benches. Transport minister Nitin Gadkari and agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan have been allotted seat number 58 and 59 — also in the front row.
Heavy industries minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy, fisheries minister Rajiv Ranjan (Lallan) Singh of the Janata Dal (United), civil aviation minister and Telugu Desam Party leader Rammohan Naidu, minister for MSME Jitan Ram Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha have got front row seats from the NDA’s quota.
The sitting arrangement reflects the political realities post the 2024 Lok Sabha election. While the BJP, with 240 seats, is dependent on key allies, an emboldened Congress, which has 99 lawmakers, has come some way from missing out the LoP status to bagging four front row seats.
There is a major change in the Opposition faces in the front row. In the 17th Lok Sabha, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and Biju Janata Dal’s Pinaki Misra were among the leaders who sat on the front row. This time, Rahul Gandhi, KC Venugopal, Gaurav Gogoi, and K Suresh will be among the Opposition leaders in the front row.
HT reported on November 28 that the Congress has sought front row seats for Gogoi, Venugopal and Suresh.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s TR Baalu and TMC’s Sudip Bandopadhyay are among the few Opposition leaders to retain their front row seats. Newly elected MP from Wayanad, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has picked a fourth row aisle seat, leaving the front rows for more experienced colleagues.
The first row of the Treasury benches has not seen any change in the last six years.
The Lok Sabha is arranged in a semi-circle with eight blocks of seats. Each block has 12 rows, and is numbered from front to back in the new building. The first block has 57 numbered seats; the second 65; the third, fourth, and fifth have 77, 71 and 83 seats each; and the sixth, 77 again. The total capacity is 552.
The BJP occupies four of these blocks.
There are 20 front row seats in the house: six in the first block, and two each in the second, third, fourth, fifth, and six blocks. It is important to understand the numbering with respect to the blocks. Thus 1-6 are the front row seats in the first block; 98 and 99 in the second; 187 and 188 in the third; and so on.
The numbering in the rows behind follows sequentially, with the number of seats usually increasing in an arithmetic progression. The seat numbers refer to the division number of an MP and come in useful during voting on bills or resolutions. The Lok Sabha Speaker can also direct an MP to speak from his or her allotted seat.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav will sit next to Bandopadhyay in the front row but his party’s Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad has got a second row seat.
TMC had earlier written to Birla’s office for allotment of seats away from the Congress bloc. The TMC MPs would be sitting in the middle of the chamber, further away from their earlier positions in the 17th Lok Sabha.
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