The government has almost completed seat allotment for leaders in the 16th Lok Sabha but has to iron out some rough edges with Congress asking for a couple of more seats than the two it is entitled to. If the government agrees to oblige Congress, which is the largest opposition party in the House, it may have to give up a couple of its own seats in the front rows in Lok Sabha.
According to sources, only Congress president Sonia Gandhi and leader of the party in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge have so far been allotted front row seats in the opposition benches.
The government has another problem with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and former PM and JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda expecting front row seats when their diminished numbers in the House do not allow it. If the government allots them front row seats, it will have to re-adjust legitimate front-benchers.
With these seats still to be worked out, the government has called a meeting of party leaders on Saturday, two days before the budget session begins on July 7, to finalise the seating arrangement.
On the treasury benches, seat allocations have more or less been worked out with home minister Rajnath Singh to be seated next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will take the first seat on the right of the Speaker. Next to Singh will be external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and the fourth seat will go to party veteran L K Advani. While Advani is not a minister, he will be among the first row parliamentarians in the lower House.
The other ministers in the front row will be railway minister Sadanand Gowda, with chemical and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar beside him. Next to the two Karnataka BJP ministers will be NDA allies - civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapati Raju of TDP, food minister Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP and heavy industries minister Anant Geete of Shiv Sena.
While the ruling NDA is entitled to 12 seats in the front rows of the treasury benches going by its strength in the House, the government may have to take a call over senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who expects a front row seat, and Shiromani Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur, who is minister for food processing industries. While they fit into the front row among the 12 seats, if the government wants to favour Deve Gowda, Mulayam or Congress, there may be readjustments.
In the middle cluster, AIADMK, Trinamool Congress and BJD will be in front rows, by the sheer weight of their numbers in the House.
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