Om Birla files nomination as NDA candidate for Lok Sabha Speaker's post

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 25

Kota MP Om Birla on Tuesday filed nomination for the post of the Lok Sabha Speaker as an NDA consensus candidate, a position he held in the previous House. The election for the post will take place at 11 am on Wednesday.

Birla was accompanied by Union Ministers Amit Shah, J P Nadda, Kiren Rijiju and all NDA allies to the office of Lok Sabha secretary general for the nominations.

Birla is a third-term Lok Sabha MP from Kota in Rajasthan.

With Congress Party’s K Suresh, an eight-term Kerala MP, filing his nominations for the Lok Sabha Speaker election earlier, there will be a contest for the post for the first time since independence.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tasked to engage the opposition said he spoke to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge thrice since last night.

Government sources said the opposition was putting conditions to support the Speaker nominee and that was against democratic conventions.

Earlier, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said the opposition would back the Speaker nominee of the government if given the Deputy Speaker post.

After it became clear that Om Birla could be retained as Lok Sabha Speaker, Shiv Sena UBT leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said the decision of suspending over 130 MPs in the Lok Sabha, first time ever in history, disqualified Mahua Moitra on the basis of a committee that tilted towards the BJP, took a decision on allotting Shiv Sena parliamentary party office to Shinde Sena thereby legitimising the traitors without taking into account the SC case.

“If TDP and JDU support this decision then they very well be prepared for BJP trying to split their parties as well besides of course legitimising unconstitutionality,” she said.