When Congress leader Kodikunnil Suresh agreed to his party’s decision to contest the election for the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post, the senior most MP as well as the entire opposition knew the outcome, given that the NDA has majority ensuring BJP’s Om Birla a second stint as the presiding officer of the Lower House.
On Thursday morning, hours before the election of Speaker began in Lok Sabha, Suresh told media the government has “compelled” the INDIA bloc to fight rather than ensuring consensus on the choice of Speaker as has been the tradition barring exceptions in 1952, 1967, and 1976.
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To offer support for Speaker, the opposition was bargaining with the government to have it’s own Deputy Speaker which also has been the tradition though the Modi did not have one in 2019.
Suresh, the MP from Kerala, became the face of the NDA-INDIA resistance in the overall strategy of the resurgent opposition to send, as Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi outlined, “message that the Parliament before 2024 and after 2024, is completely different...” The Opposition has sensed political opportunity to enhance scruiteny over the government functioning since the BJP this time failed to get a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha.
Struggle perhaps comes natural to Suresh, born to a Dalit parent. Having lost his father when he was hardly 10 years of age, Suresh and six other siblings were raised by his mother Thankamma.
Suresh, 62, still cannot overcome the extreme sacrifice his mother did by taking up manual labour to feed the family and see to it that her children get good education. Suresh had once recalled assisting his mother by selling the grass she would cut and sell in local market as cattle feed to earn a living.
The mother’s motivation was key to Suresh graduating in law.
He owes his initial Kodikunnil to his ancestral place in Thiruvananthapuram he was born in on June 4, 1962.
Suresh became a Lok Sabha MP for the first time in 1989, winning from Adoor constituency of Kerala. He consecutively clinched four Lok Sabha elections in 1991, 1996 and 1999 from the same Adoor seat. However, he was humbled in the 1998 polls though he retained it later. Again in 2004 he was defeated.
In 2009, Suresh shifted his seat to Mavelikara but the Kerala High Court declared the election void over the charge that his caste certificate was fake. The Supreme Court later reversed the verdict later. Since then, he has been winning all the elections from the same constituency and grew in stature to become a Minister of State in the UPA-II regime.
Presently, he is a working president of the Kerala Congress and a special invitee in the All India Congress Committee.