New Delhi: NDA candidate Om Birla is all set to be chosen unanimously as the Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha with the Congress-led UPA also desiring to back his candidature at the election on Wednesday.
With no opposition, the election of Birla, a two-time BJP member from Kota in Rajasthan, is expected to be a smooth affair but it will be a break with the past 10 years when women held the post from 2009. In 2009, Meira Kumar became the first woman to be elected to the post during the regime of UPA-2 while the NDA followed the suit by nominating Sumitra Mahajan in 2014.
The BJP nominated 56-year-old Birla, who was also a Member of Assembly in Rajasthan for three terms and was a parliamentary secretary in the government of Vasundhara Raje between 2003-08 has the support of 10 parties including BJD and YSRCP which are not part of the NDA.
The BJP on its own has 303 MPs and the NDA has 352. BJD has 12 while YSRCP has 22 members in Parliament. In all, the ruling combine has the support of 386 members in the 543-member Lok Sabha. With Congress, which has 52 MPs, also moving a motion in Birla's favour, the numbers would swell to more than 400. The Congress allies like DMK may also follow suit.
Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, the new leader of Congress party in the House said, "Our party has already moved the motion in favour of Om Birla as Speaker of Lok Sabha".
A meeting of the UPA chaired by Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday evening decided to extend support to Birla. Congress allies including DMK, NCP, CPI, NC, and IUML, attended the meeting.
Nominations have been filed on behalf of Birla by parties which are supporting his candidature, parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi, who said he has appealed to the Congress also to back his candidature.
An agriculturist and social worker, the low-profile leader has been active in politics from his student days and served as state unit president of the Bhartiya Yuva Morcha in 1991 and as vice-president at the national level.