The Gentle Speaker

Ganti Mohana Chandra Balayogi, the country's youngest ever and first dalitSpeaker of the Lok Sabha was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, March 3,2002  in West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh.

After a busy Saturday in Eluru and Tanuku in West Godavari district, Balayogiwas to take a train at night from Nidadavolu to reach Secunderabad Sundaymorning but last minute change in plan made him take the ill-fated flight fromBhimavaram on Sunday.

He was elected Speaker of the Twelfth Lok Sabha on 24 March 1998. It was forthe first time that a Dalit leader had been elected to the Chair. It was alsofor the first time that a member belonging to a regional party had become theSpeaker of Lok Sabha. It was also the first time that a person born inRepublican India presided over the Lok Sabha, which made him the youngestSpeaker of the largest democracy in the world. The man who had many firsts tohis credit, also ironically thus becomes the first speaker to have died inoffice.

Balayogi was born on 1 October 1951 to Shri Ganniyya and Smt. Satyamma, anagricultural family in the tiny village of Yedurulanka, on the banks of theGodavari river in the Konaseema region of East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh.He was second among three children. Married to Vijaya Kumari in 1982, he leavesbehind three daughters and a son.

Balayogi had his primary education at Guttenadivi village as there was noschool in his native place. He completed collegiate education in Kakinada beforemoving on to the Andhra University at Waltair where he pursued Post-Graduationin Political Science and Graduation in Law.

Armed with a Masters and a Law Degree, Balayogi started his legal career atthe Bar in Kakinada in 1980 under the guidance of Shri Gopalaswamy Shetty. In1985, he crossed over to the bench when he was selected as a First ClassMagistrate. But he resigned from the service and returned to the Bar to resumelegal practice in Kakinada.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh came under the sway of the "NTR wave" in1982 when N.T. Rama Rao, matinee idol of the masses, entered politics and formedthe Telugu Desam Party. At that time, many young and educated Andhraites weremoved by the wave and Balayogi too enrolled himself as an activist of the newlyformed party.

Political recognition and responsibility came to him early enough when hetook over as the Vice-Chairman of the Cooperative Town Bank of Kakinada in 1986,and never looked back since. In 1987, he was elected Chairman of the EastGodavari Zilla Praja Parishad.

Balayogi's foray into Parliament began in 1991 when he contested from theAmalapuram constituency on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket and was elected tothe Tenth Lok Sabha for the first time. In the 1996 General Elections, however,Balayogi lost his seat.

The defeat did not daunt his spirit and he continued to work with greatdynamism and firm determination to serve the people. He was soon elected to theAndhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly in a by-election from the MummidivaramAssembly constituency. Subsequently, he became Minister of Higher Education inAndhra Pradesh.

Whatever position Balayogi held, he believed that work should speak about theperson rather than the person speaking about his work. Believing in the Biblicaladage that good makes no noise and noise does no good, Balayogi went about hiswork with quite efficiency and quite efficacy in the discharge of his duties,whether as a member of Parliament, member of Legislative Assembly, Minister inthe Government, or as Chairman of the Zilla Piaja Parishad in the late '80s.

Balayogi voluntarily resigned as Minister of Higher Education, owning moralresponsibility when a controversy broke out on the leakage of question papers ofthe Intermediate Public Examination, a plus two level course, in the State. Hewas widely acclaimed for the courage of conviction and adherence to values heshowed by his gesture. However, his resignation was not accepted by the ChiefMinister who reposed faith in his Minister's integrity and Balayogi continuedhis work in higher education.

In the General Elections held in 1998, Balayogi contested from his old seat,Amalapuram, as a T.D.P. candidate and got elected to Lok Sabha for the secondtime with a comfortable majority of over 90,000 votes. Balayogi's work in theconstituency stood him in good stead and contributed to his easy victory.

His initiative and endeavour in reaching the sufferers of the 'blow out'incident at Fasarlapudi in 1995 and the victims of cyclonic tragedy in Konaseemain 1996 were not forgotten by the people. When he was elected to Lok Sabha, hewas Minister of Higher Education in Andhra  Pradesh and was pitchforkedinto the post of the speaker under dramatic circumstances in 1998 in a lastminute shift by the TDP from the United Front to support the BJP.

Balayogi was flown to Delhi from Hyderabad to file his nomination papersminutes before the deadline expired.  In 1999, he was re-elected for asecond term as Lok Sabha Speaker. He strived till the end to bring in disciplineand decorum in a House frequently disrupted by unruly behaviour.

As a speaker, he was known for patient and cool handling of difficultsituations when tempers ran high in the House and for the first time in over 50year history of Lok Sabha, the rules of procedures were amended to provide forautomatic suspension of member who entered the well of the house to disruptproceedings.

After the attack on Parliament House on December 13, Balayogi constituted aParliamentary Committee on Security headed by Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed to lookinto the recommendations by the Expert Group on parliamentary security, whichthe Speaker had set up earlier.

He travelled widely and attended conferences of Commonwealth ParliamentaryAssociation and Inter Parliamentary Union.

Survived by his wife, a son and three daughters, Balayogi devoted time to hisAmalapuram constituency and played a significant role to help farmers in gettingcompensation from the ONGC when there was a blow-out in oil well in the 1990s.

The litmus test Balayogi faced in Lok Sabha was when, he, a second time MPwas made speaker in 1998 and Vajpayee-led NDA government was voted out by asingle vote of Giridhar Gomang.

"It was a very tough situation and a delicate matter to deal with aslegal luminaries and senior members were reading out legal provisions whether ornot to allow a Chief Minister of a state, who did not resign from the Lok Sabhato vote", Balayogi had said and added "and I knew the decision I hadto take would have a bearing on the Parliamentary history of the country".

Balayogi made efforts to restore normalcy in Parliament even on his last dayin Lok Sabha on Friday, February 28, when angry members created an uproar overthe Gujarat violence, forcing him to adjourn the House. He was instrumental inconvening, last November, the All-India Conference of Presiding Officers andPolitical Parties, where an unprecedented code of conduct was adopted in theCentral Hall of Parliament, advocating temporary ostracism as a punitive measurefor "grave misconduct". For the first time in the 50-year history ofthe Lok Sabha, rules of procedures were amended to provide for the automaticsuspension of a member who entered the well of the House to disrupt proceedings.