Om Birla vs K Suresh for Speaker, First contest since 1952

The Lok Sabha Speaker's post will see an election, to be held for the first time since 1952, after talks between the ruling BJP-led NDA and the opposition broke down even though both sides reached a consensus initially. While the NDA has picked BJP MP Om Birla as its candidate, the opposition has decided to field veteran Congress leader K Suresh. The election for the post of Speaker will take place at 11 am on Wednesday.

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.

BJP leaders present at the meeting said discussions on the Deputy Speaker's post would take place later and the opposition would be consulted. However, KC Venugopal was adamant and talks collapsed.

All NDA partners have signed the nomination papers of Om Birla. The BJP-led NDA has 293 members in the Lok Sabha. On the other hand, all major INDIA bloc members have signed the nomination papers of K Suresh except TMC. Sources said the TMC was not consulted on fielding K Suresh for the Speaker's post and the party is awaiting a reply from supremo Mamata Banerjee.

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.