New Delhi: Three-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Rajasthan’s Kota, Om Birla, filed his nomination Tuesday for the post of Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha. Having won again this time, he is the first presiding officer in two decades to be re-elected to the Lower House for consecutive terms. Birla had served as Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha.
Before him, the last Lok Sabha Speaker who was re-elected to the Lower House was P.A. Sangma of the Congress, who served as Speaker of the 11th Lok Sabha and was re-elected to the House in 1998. His successor, G.M.C. Balayogi of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), was elected to the Lower House in 1998 and again in 1999.
After Balayogi’s death in a chopper crash in 2002, the baton was passed to Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena who, having been elected to the 13th Lok Sabha from Mumbai North Central in 1999, lost his re-election bid in 2004. Those who occupied this post thereafter, namely Somnath Chatterjee of the CPI(M), Meira Kumar of the Congress and Sumitra Mahajan of the BJP, either lost their re-election bids or retired from active politics.
As for Birla, his candidature has already led to the first contest for the post of Speaker since 1976, and only the second since 1952.
Though the norm has been election of a Speaker through consensus, an upbeat Opposition, reinvigorated by the results of the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, has decided to field its own candidate after the government refused to give in to its demand for the Deputy Speaker’s post. On Tuesday, Congress’s eight-time MP K. Suresh filed his nomination and will now face Birla in a contest for the post of Speaker.
If re-elected, Birla will join the league of Sangma, Balayogi, M.A. Ayyangar, G.S. Dhillon and Balram Jakhar. Of these former Speakers, only Jakhar served as presiding officer in the Lower House for two full five-year terms.
Birla, however, already has another record to his name. It was during his time as presiding officer that a record 146 opposition MPs were suspended from both Houses of Parliament in a single session. These included 100 from the Lok Sabha and 46 from the Rajya Sabha.
This record was previously held by Jakhar, who in 1989 suspended 63 Lok Sabha MPs for demanding a discussion on the Thakker Commission report on the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.
At the same time, in Birla’s renomination by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lies a message for the Opposition: the Modi government won’t bend, despite having fallen short of the majority-mark.
The rise & rise of Om Birla
Before he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014, Om Birla had served as the MLA from Kota for two terms.
He was national vice president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) during J.P. Nadda’s tenure as chief of the BJP youth wing. But Birla saw his political graph rise substantially after Vasundhara Raje took over the reins of the Rajasthan BJP. Around the same time, the influence of Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi and Raghuveer Singh Koshal, both prominent BJP leaders from the state’s Hadoti region of which Kota is a part, had begun to fade.
As president of the Rajasthan BJP, Raje fielded Birla against Shanti Dhariwal of the Congress from Kota assembly constituency in 2003. By defeating Dhariwal, Birla earned a reputation as a giant-killer. He was subsequently appointed parliamentary secretary by Raje during her tenure as chief minister (2003-08), but the two had a falling out.
A Rajasthan BJP leader said on condition of anonymity, “Birla was close to Venkaiah Naidu who was then president of the BJP and Ramdas Agarwal who was party treasurer. They backed Birla and he maintained his relationship with the national leadership in Delhi by hosting any senior party leader who visited Kota or other parts of Rajasthan.”
“He (Birla) was among the first politicians who relied on technology to look after their constituents. He is a through and through organisation man who to this day maintains a record of people’s birthdays and anniversaries.”
Former Rajasthan BJP president Arun Chaturvedi added that Birla, along with Bhawani Singh Rajawat, was close to state BJP leader and former state minister Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi.
Party sources told ThePrint that it was Birla’s past acquaintance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that helped him secure a ticket to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, after he was re-elected from Kota, Modi picked him for the post of Speaker over several other veteran party leaders.
A BJP MP from Rajasthan explained further that it was Birla’s Gujarat connection and experience, having worked in the cooperative sector as chairman of the Rajasthan State Cooperative Consumer Federation and vice chairman of the National Cooperative Consumer Federation, that helped him establish a chemistry with Modi and Amit Shah.
“His (Birla’s) social work was another aspect that made him popular in BJP circles in Delhi. This included offering free footwear, food or clothes, besides setting up medicine banks and schools for children from marginalised communities. It allowed him to make friends across party lines. Though he was not given a leadership role during Bhairon Singh Shekhawat or Raje’s time in office, Modi-Shah picked him for a prominent role, and he emerged as a prominent face from Rajasthabn in Delhi.”
An BJP old-timer recalled that during Birla’s time with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the latter jumped in front of the car of Bhanwar Lal Sharma — then a minister in the Janata Party government of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat — during an agitation against unemployment in Kota. “He (Birla) led several protests against local industrial houses in Kota and emerged as a youth leader. His chemistry with Nadda in the BJYM too helped him,” said the BJP leader who did not wish to be named.
Message from Modi in Birla’s re-nomination
When Birla assumed office as Speaker of Lok Sabha in 2019, the political situation had changed substantially. Unlike Sumitra Mahajan, who had also seen the Vajpayee-Advani era of the BJP, Birla became Speaker after the party managed to secure a brute majority (303 seats) in the Lok Sabha. By this time, Modi who until 2014 only had the experience of managing a state had seen Arun Jaitley manoeuvre the power corridors in Delhi and wanted a Speaker who could help the government assert its majority.
Birla’s official website says as Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha, he transformed the working of the Lower House by introducing, among other measures, the transition to paperless. It also credits him with promoting the use of Hindi during parliamentary proceedings.
However, the Opposition accused Birla of toeing the government line, muting the microphones of opposition leaders, expunging controversial remarks from the record, and interrupting live coverage during disruptions. Many even called on him to take a leaf out of the book of former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee who upheld democratic tradition, even at the cost of his relationship with his political contemporaries from Left parties.
Though the 17th Lok Sabha was credited with passing multiple landmark bills, the Opposition accused Birla of never trying to push for a consensus on key issues. As Speaker, he also faced criticism for turning a blind eye as treasury benches pushed Bills through the Lok Sabha with little or no discussion. For instance, during the Monsoon Session last year, the Lok Sabha passed 22 bills with each being discussed for an average 40 minutes.
Asked about the party’s decision to re-nominate Birla as Speaker, a senior BJP leader told ThePrint, “By retaining most ministers and plum portfolios, and re-nominating Birla, Modi ji has tried to send a message of continuity.”
“There is another message — ‘Brand Modi’ is not diluted and his style of governance won’t change under pressure from the Opposition. It also shows Modi’s trust in people he appoints to key positions whether it is bureaucrats or politicians, from Vijay Rupani to Anandiben Patel to J.P. Nadda, Om Birla or A.K. Sharma; PM Modi has not even changed his cook or tailor.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: Modi’s new universe: the normal irritants of democracy & awkward chai with Rahul Gandhi