Dark horse Meira Kumar may be Lok Sabha Speaker

New Delhi, May 30: Union Minister and Congress' Dalit face Meira Kumar tonight emerged the dark horse for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker, raising the prospects of becoming the first woman to hold the office.
The post of Deputy Leader has been offered to BJP with the Prime Minister himself calling up senior BJP leader L K Advani to make the proposal, a convention that has been followed for a couple of decades.

The name of 64-year-old Kumar, Water Resources Minister and daughter of former Deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram, emerged as the front runner at a meeting of top Congress leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi here, sources said.

Kumar, a five-time MP, came out as a surprise choice over veteran Congressman from Andhra Pradesh Kishore Chandra Deo, who was speculated by the media in the last fortnight as the obvious choice of Congress for the Speaker's post.

At the meeting today, however, the race appeared to have narrowed down to Kumar and Girija Vyas, another senior Congress MP from Rajasthan and a former union minister. PTI