New faces in LS front row, INDIA likely to get 8 spots

The 236 MP-strong INDIA bloc of opposition parties will get at least eight prized front row seats in the 18th Lok Sabha while the BJP will occupy another eight seats, after division numbers are allotted to the members before the next Parliament session.

The seating arrangement reflects the relative strengths of the ruling and the Opposition benches after the Lok Sabha results in which the BJP won 240 seats (down from 303 in the 17th Lok Sabha) even as the Congress improved its tally to 99 (from 52). With Samajwadi Party’s 37 MPs and Trinamool’s 29, the Opposition has expanded its footprint in the Lok Sabha. The allotment of seats indicates the pecking order and the importance of MPs in their parties.

The first treasury bench — where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and transport minister Nitin Gadkari sit — will not undergo any changes as the NDA’s top order remains unaltered in this government.

But key allies such as TDP leader and civil aviation minister K Ram Mohan Naidu and animal husbandry and Panchayati Raj minister Rajiv Ranjan (Lalan) Singh are all set to get a seat in the coveted first row.

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A senior Lok Sabha official told HT that parties have been informed about the seats allotted to different parties. “Now, the parties will write back to us to inform which seat should be allotted to a particular MP. After this exercise is over, the Lok Sabha secretariat will formally notify the division numbers,” added this person, who asked not to be named.

A division number is the seat number of an MP, which is used during voting.

In the Opposition benches, the Congress party is entitled to three front row seats out of which Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi will occupy one. K Suresh, one of the two most experienced Congress lawmakers in the house and also the chief whip of the party, might also get a front row seat.

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and DMK’s floor leader K Kanimozhi or senior leader TR Balu are also expected to join Gandhi in the Opposition’s first row. The Opposition is also expected to give prime seats to representatives of smaller allies such as Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant or RJD’s Misa Bharati.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Rajnath Singh — the latter is the senior-most minister in the government — will occupy seat Nos 1 and 2, respectively. The next two seats — Nos 3 and 4 — will go to Union home minister Amit Shah and transport minister Nitin Gadkari.

In the new building, the Lok Sabha is arranged in a semi-circle with eight blocks of seats — up from six blocks in the old building. Each block has 12 rows, and is numbered from front to back. The first block has 57 numbered seats. With a larger capacity, the new Lok Sabha has not allotted any members seats in the last row.

The BJP-led NDA will occupy five of the eight blocks.

In the recently concluded opening session of the Lok Sabha, the lawmakers were not allotted their respective seats. “The seating arrangement for most of the MPs as well as ministers in the first session did not necessarily reflect their division number,” said a second Lok Sabha official who too asked not to be named.