[Watch] Om Birla Wins Fourth Election For Lok Sabha Speaker’s Post After 1976

New Delhi: Om Birla, three-time BJP MP, was elected the Lok Sabha Speaker for the second time on Tuesday after he defeated the INDIA bloc’s candidate K Suresh via voice vote in a rare contest.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju escorted him to the podium.

PM Modi congratulated Om Birla on being elected as the Speaker for the second time.

“Respected Speaker, it is the good fortune of the House that you are occupying this Chair for the second time. I congratulate you and the entire House,” he said in his address. The Prime Minister expressed that the hope that Om Birla’s five years of experience as the Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha will help him steer the House in the right direction and lead it to newer heights.

Rahul Gandhi, dressed in a complete white ensemble, also “congratulated” Om Birla on “behalf of the entire INDIA bloc. He hoped that Om Birla would ensure the voice of Opposition is allowed to be represented in this House and that the proceedings would be conducted in a spirit of cooperation.

“The question is not how efficiently the House is run, but how clearly the voice of India is heard. This election has shown that the people of India want us to defend the Constitution of India. I would like to once again congratulate you, Speaker sir, and all the members of the House,” Rahul said.

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, a first-time MP, also congratulated the Speaker. “You are like the Chief Justice. We hope there will be no bias in this House and the Opposition and the ruling party will be treated as equals and with respect,” he said,

Sudip Bandhopadhyay, TMC MP, while congratulating the Speaker reminded him that “despite your good nature you are sometimes forced to bow down to the ruling party’s diktats”. The suspension of around 150 MPs (100 Lok Sabha MPs) happened under your watch, Bandhopadhyay reminded the Speaker, who smiled noddingly.

DMK’s TR Baalu in congratulating the Speaker hoped that he will stay “impartial, impartial, impartial”.

Om Birla, 61, who is an MP from Rajasthan’s Kota, hails from a third-generation RSS family. He was an MLA in the Rajasthan assembly before that.

Notably, Congress’s Balram Jakhar is the only MP who completed two full terms as the Lok Sabha Speaker. After 1952, 1967 and 1976, this was the fourth contest for the Speaker’s post in the history of Lok Sabha.