After days of uncertainty over the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post, the NDA has decided to nominate Om Birla for the post again. BJP’s Om Birla was the Speaker in the previous Lok Sabha. Sources said that Mr Birla will be file his nomination at 11.30 am today.
The opposition INDIA bloc is unlikely to contest the post and Mr Birla is likely to be elected unopposed, sources said. A Lok Sabha Speaker is elected by a simple majority of MPs voting.
The BJP, thanks to brute majorities after the 2014 and 2019 elections, was unchallenged then in nominating Sumitra Mahajan and Om Birla to the post. This time, though, it doesn’t quite have the numbers; Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is the single-largest in Parliament with 240 seats but is 32 short of majority, meaning it relies on Nitish Kumar’s JDU and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to remain in power.
However, the Opposition has demanded that they be given the choice to pick the deputy speaker. According to sources, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has already made it clear to senior BJP leader and Union Minister Rajnath Singh that the Deputy Speaker should be from the Opposition benches. The Congress chief has said that while the Oppositions wants consensus too, healthy traditions must be followed, the sources added.
Earlier today, Mr Birla held talks with PM Modi ahead of day 2 of the Parliament.