New Delhi:

The re-election of Om Birla to the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post – a formality given the ruling BJP-led coalition always had the numbers – was followed by a flurry of congratulatory messages, and appeals to the Kota MP to run an impartial House – from opposition leaders, including the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi.

The opposition MPs – who backed the Congress’ Kodikunnil Suresh – struck several common notes, including urging Mr Birla, a three-time BJP MP from Rajasthan’s Kota, to ensure impartiality in conduct of the House and to allow their members time to voice their concerns and criticisms.

The reference – made overtly by some – was to the shocking mass suspension of MPs last year.

READ | Be Impartial, Defend Constitution”: Opposition MPs To Om Birla

Nearly two-third of the opposition was ejected by Mr Birla amid vociferous protests on several issues, including a security breach that month. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor – re-elected to the 18th Lok Sabha from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram – called the suspensions a “betrayal of democracy”.

Today, after a rare election for the post of the Speaker – traditionally a unanimous pick to underscore bonhomie on conduct of the House – the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi – was the first opposition leader to speak, and he immediately took a jab at the new two-time Speaker.

READ | Rahul Gandhi Debuts As Leader of Opposition With Sharp Message

“I am confident you will allow us to speak. The question is not how efficiently the House is run… it is how much of India’s voice is being heard. So the idea you can run the House efficiently – by silencing the voice of the opposition – is a non-democratic idea, and this election has shown the people expect the opposition to defend the Constitution,” Mr Gandhi, now Leader of the Opposition, said.

Mr Gandhi contested and won the Congress’ Raebareli bastion in Uttar Pradesh and its stronghold of Wayanad in Kerala. He will surrender the latter and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the bypoll.

The Congress leader was followed by Akhilesh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party is a member of the INDIA bloc and the third-largest party in the Lok Sabha, thanks to a stunning show in Uttar Pradesh.

“We expect the voice of the opposition will not be crushed… we expect there will be no more expulsions,” Mr Yadav said, urging Om Birla to ensure equality in treatment of all MPs.

READ | “Hope Suspension Of MPs Will…”: Akhilesh Yadav To Speaker

“We hope you will give equal respect to every MP… we will stand by all your just decisions (but) expect it won’t be just the opposition kept under check,” Mr Yadav, who won the Kannauj seat, said.

The Trinamool’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay and the DMK’s TR Baalu made similar appeals.

Mr Bandyopadhyay – whose party demurred yesterday over the nomination of K Suresh – said the functioning of the House depended on maintaining parliamentary democratic practice.

“It is my firm belief, so far as parliamentary democratic practice is concerned, that the House belongs to the opposition. This attitude needs to be adopted by the ruling party,” he said.

He referred to last year’s mass suspension of MPs and called it “not desirable”.

Mr Baalu, meanwhile, reminded the new Speaker that he does not, now, belong to any party.

“You might have been elected by my BJP friends (but) there can now be no politics between you and the powers. You have to treat the opposition and the ruling party the same. Kindly be impartial,” he said.

PM’s Praise For Speaker

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also extended his congratulations to Mr Birla and declared the Kota lawmaker will play a significant role in ensuring the House meets the expectations of the people.

READ | PM Praises Speaker Om Birla: “Key Bills Passed Under Your Leadership”

“I congratulate you on behalf of the entire House and look forward to your guidance for the next five years,” the Prime Minister said, adding “Your sweet smile keeps the entire House happy.”

This was only the third election for a Lok Sabha Speaker since independence.

Voting took place after the Congress forced a contest and fielded eight-time MP K Suresh. The numbers, though, were always on Mr Birla’s side; he had 297 votes to the opposition pick’s 232.

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New Delhi:

The stage is set for the election of a Lok Sabha Speaker after three decades. On one side is BJP’s Om Birla, a three-time MP and the Speaker in the last Lok Sabha. His challenger is the Congress’s eight-time MP K Suresh.

In the 543-member House, seven MPs have not taken oath yet and the Wayanad seat is vacant. This means 535 MPs are eligible to vote today, and 268 is the majority mark.

NDA candidate Mr Birla is the frontrunner and has the support of 293 MPs, including 240 of the BJP, TDP’s 16 and JDU’s 12. The YSR Congress has announced that its four MPs will support Mr Birla. That makes it 297. BJP sources said they are also reaching out to Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Independent MP Chandrashekhar Azad and Voice of the People Party’s Ricky Andrew J Syngkon to take its tally to the 300 mark.

Mr Suresh, on the other hand, has the support of 232 MPs, including the Congress’s 98, Samajwadi Party’s 37, Trinamool’s 29 and DMK’s 21.

This is only the third time after Independence that an election for the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post is being held. The Speaker is generally chosen with consensus. This time, the government had reached out to Opposition parties for their support. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge responded that it will support the NDA candidate if the Deputy Speaker is appointed from the Opposition benches.

The government, however, made it clear that they are not considering a Deputy Speaker post, or the Opposition’s claim to it, for now. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has criticised the Congress for setting conditions. “We appealed to them for support for the Speaker, but they said that they would support it but that they wanted the post of Deputy Speaker. We told them that the process of election for both posts is different. The process for choosing the Speaker is conducted before the Deputy Speaker. So it is not right to combine both.”

Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, set to be the Leader of the Opposition, has said, “Rajnath Singh called Mallikarjun Kharge and asked him to extend support… entire Opposition said we will support but convention is Deputy Speaker should be from our side. Rajnath Singh said he would call back… but he has not yet…PM is asking for cooperation but our leader is getting insulted.”

It must be noted that the Deputy Speaker’s post, traditionally given to an Opposition MP, was vacant in the last Lok Sabha. In the one before that, the BJP had named its ally AIADMK’s M Thambi Durai.

New Delhi:

The Trinamool Congress has decided to support Congress’s K Suresh in the rare election for Lok Sabha Speaker today, according to sources. The Mamata Banerjee-led party had yesterday said it was not consulted before K Suresh was fielded against NDA candidate Om Birla and had termed the decision “unilateral”.

Ms Banerjee’s nephew and Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee yesterday said, “We were not contacted about this, there was no discussion. Unfortunately, this is a unilateral decision.” Mr Suresh, however, clarified later that Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien and Kalyan Banerjee attended an INDIA bloc meeting last evening and “everything cleared up”.

Mr Birla, a three-time MP and Speaker in the last Lok Sabha, is clearly a frontrunner in this election. Seven MPs have not taken oath yet and the Wayanad seat in Kerala is vacant. This means 535 MPs are eligible to vote today, and 268 is the majority mark. The NDA candidate has the support of 293 MPs and four MPs from YSR Congress Party. The BJP, sources said, is reaching out to other MPs to cross the 300-mark.

The Opposition, on the other hand, has forced a contest to make a political point. Eight-term MP K Suresh has the support of 233 MPs (including Trinamool’s 29), 35 less than the majority mark. 

This is only the third election for the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post after Independence. The Speaker is generally chosen with consensus. This time, the government had reached out to Opposition parties for their support. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge responded that it will support the NDA candidate if the Deputy Speaker is appointed from the Opposition benches. 

The government, however, made it clear that they are not considering a Deputy Speaker post, or the Opposition’s claim to it, for now. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju criticised the Congress for setting conditions. “We appealed to them for support for the Speaker but they said that they would support it but that they wanted the post of Deputy Speaker. We told them that the process of election for both posts is different. The process for choosing the Speaker is conducted before the Deputy Speaker. So it is not right to combine both.”

Congress’s Rahul Gandhi, set to be the Leader of the Opposition, said, “Rajnath Singh called Mallikarjun Kharge and asked him to extend support… entire Opposition said we will support but convention is Deputy Speaker should be from our side. Rajnath Singh said he would call back… but he has not yet…PM is asking for cooperation but our leader is getting insulted.”

It must be noted that the Deputy Speaker’s post, traditionally given to an Opposition MP, was vacant in the last Lok Sabha. In the one before that, the BJP had named its ally AIADMK’s M Thambi Durai.  

New Delhi:

Today’s election for the post of the Lok Sabha Speaker, already tilted in the government’s favour, can push the Opposition further down, with five of its 232 MPs yet to take oath. The oath pending, they cannot vote in the election, sources have told NDTV.

The list includes stalwarts like Congress’s Shashi Tharoor and Trinamool Congress’s actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha.

There are also a few others — Deepak Adhikari and Nurul Islam of Trinamool Congress and Afzhal Ansari of the Samajwadi Party and two Independents. It is not yet known why the oath of some of these leaders is pending.

Afzhal Ansari is the elder brother of criminal-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari. Sentenced to four years in prison, his jail term was put on hold by the Allahabad High Court in view of the election.

The case will be heard when the court opens in July. If the court upholds his sentence, he will lose his membership of parliament.

Victory in Speaker election is based on the number of MPs present and voting – which means the absence of these seven MPs will bring down the total number and therefore the halfway mark.

While the Opposition won 232 seats, it will miss five MPs in its ranks, bringing it down to 227 – assuming the rest turn up and vote. The majority mark will stand at 269.

The NDA, already with 293 MPs, is also expected to have the support of the four MPs of YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress, which, like Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal, had lent issue-based support to the government.

Now, routed in the Odisha assembly election, the BJD has said it will not provide any support to the BJP. But the YSR Congress, though trounced by BJP ally Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party, is sticking to its stance.

For the BJP, which already has enough MPs in its corner to ensure a victory of Om Birla — who is contesting against Opposition candidate K Suresh for a second stint at the job — the question is one of optics.

The BJP is also working to bring Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the Akali Dal, Nagina MP Chandrashekhar Azad, and Shillong MP Ricky Andrew Syngkon on board. With their support, the party aims to surpass the psychologically significant threshold of 300 seats.

The party, unlike in 2014 and 2019, has been unable to achieve majority on its own and is dependent on Mr Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United to keep its head above the halfway mark. A decisive victory in the Lok Sabha is expected to boost morale in the party camp.

New Delhi:

Congress MP Kodikunnil Suresh – a late entrant in the Lok Sabha Speaker race – has accused the government of “breaking convention” regarding the naming of an opposition leader as the Deputy Speaker of the House. “We tried for a consensus but the ruling party… they are not ready. Consensus means, if we support Speaker, then they should give Deputy’s post to opposition,” he told NDTV.

Mr Suresh was also asked about the futility of contesting an election for the Speaker’s position – given s/he is elected by simple majority and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance can count, potentially on over 300 votes. “Numbers are not the point. Winning or losing is a different matter.”

“The point is, there is a convention in Lok Sabha… a convention the government is breaking. There is a system for the Speaker’s post (referring to the opposition’s argument that the Deputy Speaker needs to be from a non-ruling party to ensure balance) and that has been broken…” he told NDTV.

Mr Suresh also rubbished the BJP-led NDA’s claim the opposition is indulging in “pressure tactics”.

“We are not pressurising… we are only asking for our right. Deputy Speaker is the opposition’s right… that is all we are doing. If they are not ready to do even that…” he said shrugging his shoulders.

Mr Suresh also referred to the row over the Pro Tem Speaker’s post, which the Congress and the opposition had expected would be handed to him given his status as one of the senior-most MPs.

There was drama in Parliament this morning after the BJP-led NDA government reached out to the Congress-led INDIA opposition bloc to build consensus to re-appoint Kota MP Om Birla as Speaker.

READ | Government vs Opposition On Speaker, First Contest In Decades

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju met INDIA bloc leaders, including the Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge, and were the opposition wanted the Deputy Speaker’s post.

READ | In Speaker Row, Rajnath Singh’s Call, Congress’ Deputy Reply

Sources, however, told NDTV the BJP said a decision on his deputy would be taken later.

The opposition, however, refused to play ball and, as the clock ticked down to the noon deadline, whispers emerged that the Congress’ K Suresh would be offered as an alternative to Om Birla.

And so it happened; as visuals showed senior leaders from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance accompanying Mr Birla to file his papers, it was confirmed that Mr Suresh had submitted his name.

This means, for the first time in decades, there will be a formal election to pick the Speaker.

READ | Om Birla To Be Speaker Again, BJP-Led Govt Sticks To Continuity

Meanwhile, in the inevitable back-and-forth that followed the opposition’s decision, BJP sources told NDTV efforts were made to build consensus but the opposition responded with “pressure politics”.

Sources said the Congress’ KC Venugopal and TR Baalu of Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK insisted on a commitment from the BJP – one to the effect the Deputy Speaker would be an opposition MP.

Earlier, while the INDIA bloc was waiting on the BJP’s response, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi referred to media reports that quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging the opposition to work “constructively”.

“Today newspapers reported that PM Modi said the opposition should cooperate constructively. Rajnath Singh called Mallikarjun Kharge and asked him to extend support… entire opposition said we will support but convention is Deputy Speaker should be from our side. Rajnath Singh said he would call back… but he has not yet…PM is asking for cooperation but our leader is getting insulted…”

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New Delhi:

The BJP’s ruling coalition and the Congress’ INDIA opposition bloc will go head-to-head Wednesday in a battle for the Speaker’s post – arguably one of the most important in a parliamentary democracy and to be held for the first time since 1952 – after the two failed to agree a division of seats.

The election will see the BJP’s Om Birla, a three-time MP from Kota in Rajasthan, up against the Congress’ Kodikunnil Suresh, an eight-term parliamentarian from Kerala’s Mavelikara.

Mr Birla is likely to win given the BJP-led alliance’s majority; the Lok Sabha Speaker is elected by a simple majority of MPs voting and the ruling coalition can call on 293 votes to the INDIA bloc’s 232.

There was much drama this morning – ahead of the noon deadline to file nominations – as the BJP sought the opposition’s consensus over the re-appointment of Mr Birla as the Lok Sabha Speaker.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju were so tasked.

Mr Singh and Mr Rijiju met INDIA bloc leaders, including the Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge, and were told consensus was not a problem, so long as the Deputy Speaker’s post is allotted to the opposition.

The deputy’s chair is traditionally reserved for an opposition MP to ensure a balanced House.

The post was not filled in the second Modi government (2019-2024), but in the first (2014-2019), it was awarded to an ally of the ruling BJP – the AIADMK’s M Thambidurai held the position.

Unfortunately for the BJP, the meeting with the opposition leaders did not go as hoped; the INDIA bloc said it was ready to support Mr Birla’s candidate providing it was given the deputy’s post.

Sources told NDTV the BJP was not forthcoming on this demand; the party reportedly wanted immediate consensus for Mr Birla and said a decision on his deputy would be taken later.

The opposition, however, refused to play ball and, as the clock ticked down to the noon deadline, whispers emerged that the Congress’ K Suresh would be offered as an alternative to Om Birla.

And so it happened; as visuals showed senior leaders from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance accompanying Mr Birla to file his papers, it was confirmed that Mr Suresh had submitted his name.

In the inevitable back-and-forth to follow, BJP sources told NDTV efforts had been made to build consensus with an opposition that responded with “pressure politics”. Sources claimed the Congress’ KC Venugopal and TR Baalu of Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK insisted on a commitment from the BJP – one to the effect that the Deputy Speaker would be a member of the INDIA grouping.

Sources in the BJP, which was unwilling to offer such an assurance, have now blamed the opposition’s “lack of commitment led to a failure of consensus”.