The election for the Lok Sabha Speaker post, scheduled for June 26, will be unprecedented since the speaker of the Lok Sabha has always been elected unopposed by ruling party.
Om Birla filed nomination for the Lok Sabha speaker post on Tuesday, 25th June 2024 in the presence of top NDA leaders.
Congress leader K Suresh also filed his nomination for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker, challenging NDA nominee Om Birla.
Now the election for the Lok Sabha Speaker post is scheduled for June 26 at 11.00 am
A Lok Sabha Speaker is elected by a simple majority. More than half of the 543 members present in the Lok Sabha vote for a particular candidate to become the Speaker of Lok Sabha.
The NDA, which has 293 MPs in the 543-member Lok Sabha, enjoys a clear majority. The Opposition has 234 legislators in the Lok Sabha.
With numbers in favour of the NDA, Om Birla is set to become the Lok Sabha Speaker for a second term. Om Birla was first elected to Lok Sabha in 2014. He was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha when he returned as an MP from Kota.
K Suresh, 62, is an eight-term MP and the senior-most Lok Sabha member. He is also the working president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee. K Suresh’s nomination as the Opposition candidate came after a tense discourse between the NDA and INDI Alliance over the post of deputy Speaker.
INDI Alliance said it was willing to support NDA candidate but only if the deputy Speaker post is given to the Opposition.
Rahul Gandhi said Defence Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh had called Mallikarjun Kharge to reach a consensus between the two blocs but the talks fell apart over the deputy Speaker post.
“Rajnath Singh called Mallikarjun Kharge and he asked him to extend support to the Speaker. The entire Opposition said that we would support the Speaker but the convention is that the Deputy Speaker post should be given to the opposition.
The Lok Sabha Speaker and deputy Speaker have always been elected by consensus between the ruling party and the Opposition.
The BJP MPs say the Opposition has gone against Parliamentary tradition by listing a pre-condition of “give and take” to support the NDA candidate.
In Independent India, the contest for the Speaker’s post happened twice in 1952, after the first general elections in which GV Mavalankar won against Shankar Shantaram, and in 1976 during Emergency when Baliram Bhagat was pitted against Opposition’s Jagannathrao Joshi.