Senior BJP leader Hriday Narayan Dixit was on Thursday unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

“Dixit has been declared as the new Speaker of the 17th Vidhan Sabha,” the Assembly secretariat said.

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A five-time MLA, Dixit (69) has earlier been minister for panchayati raj and parliamentary affairs. He was the leader of the BJP in the Legislative Council till recently.

He is also a columnist and has a number of books to his credit.

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Dixit’s was the only nomination filed yesterday for the post. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was also present when it was filed.

Congratulating Dixit, Adityanath expressed confidence that proceedings of the House would be conducted smoothly under his guidance.

“Your Parliamentary knowledge, interest towards religion and philosophy and guidance to society on different issues…this House will definitely take pride from all this,” he said.

“Over two dozen books written by you have been published…writing becomes very difficult in public life and therefore your creativity is all the more important…this House feels elated to get you as the Speaker,” he said.

Stressing the importance of both the ruling party and opposition in the House, the chief minister said that though both had targeted each other during the election campaign, they are important pillars of democracy.

People have sent them both for working together, he said.

“I can assure you that this government, under your guidance, will not allow such things (differences to come in the way). We will work strongly to establish the traditions of democracy. We want the cooperation of our opposition parties also,” he said.

Members of the most of the major political parties including BJP, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress, BJP’s allies Apana Dal and Suhel Dev Bharatiya Samaj Party and independent members had yesterday filed papers proposing and seconding the candidature of Dixit for the post.

BJP member and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna’s proposal for the candidature of Dixit was seconded by his cabinet colleague Swami Prasad Maurya, Samajwadi Party’s Ram Govind Chaudhary and Rakesh Pratap Singh, BSP’s Lalji Verma and Sukhdev Rajbhar, Congress’s Aradhana Misra alias Mona and Ajay Kumar, among others.