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Om Birla: From student leader to Lok Sabha Speaker
- It is believed that Birla was hand-picked by Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for the top post
- Birla will succeed Sumitra Mahajan who chose not to contest Lok Sabha polls in 2019
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and two-time Lok Sabha member Om Birla, who started his political career at the age of 17 when still in school, is all set to be unanimously elected the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in the second term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Opposition parties have decided to support Birla, with the NDA having a clear majority of at least 387 out of the 542 MPs in the lower house of Parliament.
Representing the Kota parliamentary constituency since the 2014 general elections, Birla is a well-known political leader from Rajasthan. Having steadily risen the ranks of the BJP’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It is believed that Birla was hand-picked by Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for the post of Speaker.
Birla will succeed Sumitra Mahajan, who chose not to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The 56-year-old Birla has been an agriculturalist and social worker in Rajasthan. He is married to Amita Birla and has two daughters.
Birla’s political career took off at the age of 17 when he became president of the students association of the Government Senior Secondary School in Gumanpura in Kota in 1979. Birla has been a three-time member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Rajasthan. He first contested the Lok Sabha polls in 2014.
Pursuing degrees in commerce for graduation and post-graduation, Birla continued his political career to become joint secretary, Rajasthan College of Commerce, Kota. He was also the district president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in Kota for four years before becoming state president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), Rajasthan, for six consecutive years. The BJYM is the youth wing of the BJP and is one of the most active political wings of the saffron party. Birla was also the national vice-president of the BJYM for six years.
In his profile on the Parliament website, Birla says he was actively involved in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, which was started for the construction of a Ram Mandir at the disputed site in Ayodhya. According to the profile, he was imprisoned in Uttar Pradesh due to his participation in the Ram Mandir construction movement.
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First Published:19 Jun 2019, 09:26 AM IST
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