BJP’s Vishweshwar Kageri is the new Karnataka Speaker

Our Bureau

Six-time MLA Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.

The post fell vacant after KR Ramesh Kumar resigned as the Speaker of the Assembly shortly after the BJP government won the trust vote on Monday.

Kageri, who represents the Sirsi constituency in Uttara Kannada, had served as the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education in the BJP government and was the only candidate to file his nomination for the post on Tuesday.

The Opposition Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) did not field any candidate.

Kageri had started out as an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad leader and debuted as an MLA from the Ankola constituency in 1994, which he continued to represent thrice till 2008.

After the delimitation of constituencies in the State, he shifted to Sirsi and won the 2008, 2013 and 2018 Assembly elections.