Om Birla likely to file nomination for Lok Sabha Speaker post

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Om Birla is likely to file his nomination for the Lok Sabha speaker’s position on Tuesday for the second successive term, people of the developments said.

If elected, he will be the second person to hold office for the second time.

According to people aware of the details, defence minister Rajnath Singh and parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju have reached out to the members across party lines for consensus on the speaker’s election.

Singh is learnt to have held discussions with leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc alliance till late Monday night to build consensus on the issue.

If elected, Birla, who is a lawmaker from Rajasthan’s Kota, will equal the record of Congress’s Balram Jhakhar who was elected as Speaker twice and was in the chair from 1980 to 1989.

The Opposition parties will wait for the ruling dispensation to name its Lok Sabha speaker candidate before taking a call if the INDIA alliance would field its candidate.

The parties have to submit the notice for their candidates with the pro-tem Speaker by 12noon on June 25.

The election for the speaker is scheduled on June 26.

In 22 years, Birla is the only Speaker who got re-elected to the Lok Sabha after serving five years as the Speaker.

GMC Balayogi died midway as speaker in 2002, Manohar Joshi and Meira Kumar lost their elections while Sumitra Mahajan and Somnath Chatterjee retired.