Charanjit Atwal: Stunned

New Delhi, June 28: Charanjit Singh Atwal, the second Sikh to become deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, is the first “dead man” to hold the post.

The Shiromani Akali Dal member found to his shock today that a parliamentary publication had pronounced him dead a year ago. “What do you mean I died... How can anyone say so?” a stunned Atwal said. The 67-year-old deputy Speaker said he would find out when he “died”.

All the veteran MP from Punjab’s Phillaur (reserved) constituency needs to do is glance over the Indian Parliamentary Companion: Who’s Who of Members of Lok Sabha (First to Thirteenth Lok Sabha).

The Lok Sabha secretariat publication was released by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on January 22, 2003, at a function held by the International Parliamentary Conference to mark the golden jubilee of Parliament.

At the end of a brief, and incomplete, biographical sketch of the veteran Lok Sabha MP, page 545 of the publication lists Atwal as dead. “Died on 4-10-1990” it says next to an old photograph of Atwal. The Hindi version of the publication also has the same date of death, suggesting the error crept into the Lok Sabha records at an early stage of compilation.

The MP said no one had brought the error to his notice over the past year, not even after he became deputy Speaker. “No one told me and I also did not see this document.”

“Yeh to bahut gadbad hai (This is completely wrong),” he said, adding that he would have the mistake probed.

A member of the eighth Lok Sabha, Atwal returned to the Lower House this year from Phillaur after a stint as Punjab Speaker from 1997 to 2002. The publication makes no mention of this.

Atwal follows in the footsteps of jurist Hukum Singh, who was elected deputy Speaker in March 1956. The MP, who promised to work impartially after filing his nomination for the post, entered electoral politics in 1969 when he contested Assembly elections from Ludhiana West with Akali support but lost. Atwal moved to the Koomkala Assembly seat in 1977 and won. He graduated to the Lok Sabha in 1985, winning from Ropar.

A government official who had turned to the publication to find out more on Atwal after he was unanimously elected deputy Speaker said he was surprised to find the MP was declared dead. “There are other errors too... though they do not seem to have killed anyone else,” he said.