What worked for Om Birla as he looks set to retain Lok Sabha Speaker chair, 3 factors

Of the 17 Members of Parliament who have occupied the chair of the Lok Sabha Speaker, only four have returned to the chair. Of them, three returned to the chair for consecutive terms, but only one served two full-terms as the Lok Sabha Speaker. If elected, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Om Birla will become only the second Lok Sabha Speaker to return to the chair after serving a full-term after Balram Jakhar.

Jakhar also holds the record for serving as the Lok Sabha Speaker for the longest term — nine years and 329 days between 1980 and 1989. Others to return to the chair were MA Iyengar (six years and 22 days between 1956 and 1962), Gurdial Singh Dhillon (six years and 110 days between 1969 and 1975) and Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, who served two non-consecutive terms as the Lok Sabha Speaker — for two years 124 days during 1969-71 and 109 days in 1977.

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The return of Om Birla as the Lok Sabha Speaker had become uncertain after the BJP failed to win a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha election, falling 32 short of the 272-mark.

Reports suggested that its allies, particularly the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu, pressured the BJP leadership for the Speaker’s post in exchange for the continued support to the Modi government in its third term.

The demand emerged from a similar arrangement between the BJP and the TDP when the two shared power in New Delhi with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the prime minister and his party having no majority of its own in the Lok Sabha. However, through the government formations at the Centre and Andhra Pradesh, it became clear that the BJP leadership was having its way even in Modi 3.0, despite speculation that the party might be forced to give up some of the key posts in the Council of Ministers and Parliament.

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So, what worked for Om Birla?

Continuity, the message that PM Modi has emphasised in his third term

It is well-known in the BJP circle that Prime Minister Narendra Modi prefers to work for a long time with the same set of people he has once reposed faith in. This was reflected in his allocation of portfolios to the newly sworn-in Council of Ministers earlier this month.

Modi did not alter the face of his Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the most powerful panel in India’s national government. The top ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari were given the same portfolios that they had in the previous government. This was viewed as Modi’s way of emphasising continuity in his government.

In his first meeting with the newly National Democratic Alliance (NDA) MPs, Modi said, “It was said [by the Opposition] that we have lost…You can ask any child whose government was in power before the Lok Sabha elections? They will say the NDA. Then ask who formed the government after 2024, and they will say the NDA. So how did we lose? It was an NDA government in the past, still is and will be.”

The indication was clear that Modi would strive hard to give out the message of continuity, not only to the foreign nations but also to domestic political stakeholders. Om Birla fits the bill after having worked in close coordination with the parliamentary affairs ministry, a key responsibility of the Lok Sabha Speaker.

Om Birla, the first Speaker to win LS polls in 26 years

Birla won the Kota parliamentary seat, becoming the first presiding officer in the 21st century to be re-elected to the Lower House. The last Lok Sabha speaker to get re-elected to the House of People was PA Sangma, the presiding officer of the 11th Lok Sabha from 1996 to 1998. Sangma won the Tura seat in Meghalaya in the 1998 Lok Sabha election as a Congress candidate.

His successor in the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chair was TDP member GMC Balayogi. He could not contest the next election as he met a tragic end in a helicopter crash in 2002. The next Lok Sabha Speaker, Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi, lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election from the Mumbai North Central constituency.

Next in line was CPI-M’s Somnath Chatterjee, the Bolpur MP from West Bengal. He retired from politics and didn’t contest the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Congress leader Meira Kumar, presided over the 15th Lok Sabha but lost the parliamentary polls in 2014, and also in 2019.

BJP leader and Indore MP Sumitra Mahajan was elected as the Lok Sabha Speaker in 2014, but retired from politics and did not contest the 2019 election.

This makes Birla a rare politician who somehow maintained a connection with his voters while doing his job as the guardian of the House of People of the world’s largest democracy. Birla’s victory from Rajasthan stood out as his party suffered a jolt — losing 11 of the 25 seats after having won all in 2014 and 2019.

Birla, an RSS loyalist who is close to Modi and Shah

Having been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since his formative years, Birla rose through the ranks of the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) and made a mark as an organisation strategist during the 1990s. In the 2003 Rajasthan Assembly election, Birla emerged as a giant-killer defeating Congress stalwart Shanti Dhariwal in Kota South.

Biral was actively involved in the Ram Mandir movement and went to jail multiple times for it. Steadfast in his loyalty to the RSS, Birla was reportedly handpicked by Amit Shah to lead BJP’s organisational revamp in Rajasthan ahead of the 2018 state polls as the party fought hard to beat anti-incumbency against the Vasundhara Raje government. The BJP, however, lost the polls. But Birla got the credit for restricting the damage to the party.

Those in the know of things say that Birla continues to enjoy the confidence of the RSS, which made him a suitable candidate to earn the BJP’s nomination for the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post.

Meanwhile, a second contest for the Speaker’s post since Independence

Given that the BJP and its NDA allies enjoy a comfortable majority in the House, Birla’s election as the Lok Sabha Speaker now looks a mere formality, despite the Congress-led Opposition bloc fielding K Suresh, the Kodaikanal MP from Tamil Nadu.

This makes it the second electoral contest for the top parliamentary post in India. In Independent India, Lok Sabha Speakers were generally elected through consensus. The first contest for the post of the Speaker happened when the Lok Sabha was in the form of the Central Legislative Assembly Speaker. That election was held in January 1946.

GV Mavalankar defeated Cowasjee Jehangir polling 66 votes against 63 by his rival. Mavalankar went on to become the first Speaker of the Constituent Assembly and the first Lok Sabha Speaker.

The second contest happened during the Emergency years, when Bali Ram Bhagat (344 votes) defeated Jagannath Rao (58 votes) in the 1976 electoral contest.

Though the outcome of the Speaker’s election looks a foregone conclusion, a political tussle may, however, be seen if the government decides to have a deputy speaker, which remained vacant throughout the tenure of the 17th Lok Sabha. By convention, the Opposition lays claim to the post. The government cites rules that are silent on which side should get the deputy speaker’s post.