BJP's Om Birla to face K Suresh of Congress for LS top chair
New Delhi, June 25: After efforts to build consensus over the Lok Sabha Speaker's post failed, BJP MP Om Birla on Tuesday filed his nomination, triggering an election for the top parliamentary post for the first time since independence.
He will fight against Congress MP K Suresh, who also filed his nomination for the post of Speaker, representing the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDI Alliance) of the opposition.
The development came after the INDI bloc demanded to negotiate that it was willing to back Om Birla, but required the deputy speaker's post be allotted to a member of the opposition, in keeping with parliamentary tradition.
Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju reached out to Congress chairman Mallikarjun Kharge to try and build consensus regarding the Speaker's post. Union Ministers Amit Shah and JP Nadda were also present.
Congress' KC Venugopal and DMK's TR Baalu walked out of the Defence Minister's chamber, refusing to endorse the NDA candidate as negotiations failed. Venugopal told reporters BJP refused to commit on the deputy speaker's post.
Speaking to reporters in the premises of Parliament on Tuesday, BJP MP Piyush Goyal informed: “The INDI bloc said first decide the name for Deputy Speaker then we will support the Speaker candidate. We condemn such politics. A good tradition would have been to choose the Speaker unanimously.
“The Speaker does not belong to any party or opposition; he belongs to the entire House.”
If elected, Om Birla will be the second person to hold the office for the second time.
Birla, who is a BJP MP from Kota in Rajasthan, became a lawmaker for the first time in 2014. He was unanimously elected as Lok Sabha Speaker on June 19, 2019, during his second term in the Lower House.
While K Suresh is a Dalit leader of the Congress party who has been an eight-time MP, and will contest for the post for the first time.
