The monsoon session of the Kerala Assembly began on Monday. The session was adjourned after members paid respects to Kerala Congress (M) leader KM Mani who had passed away on April 9. Mani had been the longest serving MLA of the house.
Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said that with the demise of Mani, Kerala lost a legislator who was irreplaceable. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called Mani an unparalleled leader. "All legislators should follow his punctuality when it came to being present at the Assembly. Mani had believed that he had something new to learn every moment," the Chief Minister recalled.
Mani, the undisputed leader of KC(M) was also the party's Leader of the House. On Monday, it was the party's working chairman PJ Joseph who sat on Mani’s chair. The Speaker asked KC(M) MLAs to choose the Leader of the House before June 9.
The central Kerala based party has six MLAs in the House and with the demise of Mani, the number is now five. Mani had been representing Pala constituency in Kottayam.
Mani is the longest serving member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly (he has been an MLA for more than 50 years) and represented the constituency of Pala during this entire period.
All the nine MLAs, barring PV Anwar of Nilambur, who contested in the Assembly elections were also present in the House on Monday. Among them were winners- Konni MLA Adoor Prakash, legislator of Ernakulam Hibi Eden, and K Muraleedharan, who represents Vattiyoorkavu constituency. The three Congress MLAs won from Attingal, Ernakulam and Vadakara Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. The Left MLAs who contested and lost the Lok Sabha elections are Veena George of Aranmula, Chittayam Gopaumar of Adoor, C Divakaran of Nedumangad, while AM Ariff won from Alappuzha.
The Speaker congratulated the winners in the elections. There is a grace period of 14 days for the MLAs who won in the Lok Sabha election to tender their resignation. The entire Opposition seemed enthused with the resounding victory of the United Democratic Front in the Lok Sabha elections, which secured 19 out of the 20 seats in Kerala.
The session will conclude on July 5, but there would be would be no sitting from May 30 to June 9.