New Delhi: BJP nominee Om Birla has been elected as the Lok Sabha Speaker once again. The NDA candidate was poised to retain the Speaker’s post as the numbers were in favour of the ruling coalition.
Following the win, Om Birla was congratulated by PM Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, both of whom escorted him to the Speaker’s chair. Prime Minister Modi today said that Birla’s experience of being a Speaker in the last term would help him guide the country further. He was up against Congress candidate K Suresh, who filed his nomination after the ruling party and Opposition failed to reach a consensus last evening.
PM Modi posted a video of the new speaker delivering his speech.
The government and the opposition appeared to have reached a consensus initially. However, talks broke down after the government was non-committal on giving the Deputy Speaker’s post to the opposition, sources said.
The government had deployed Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju to build a consensus on the Lok Sabha Speaker candidate.
During the meeting at Rajnath Singh’s office, Congress’s KC Venugopal sought immediate assurance of the Deputy Speaker post for the opposition in return for getting Om Birla re-elected unopposed. However, this was not acceptable as the BJP-led NDA did not want any conditional support.
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