Om Birla

Om Birla (born 23 November 1962) is an Indian politician and businessman from Rajasthan. He is the current Speaker of the Lok Sabha since 19 June 2019. He serves as a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Kota constituency in Rajasthan since 2014. In 2024, he became the first person in 20 years to be re-elected as an MP to the lower house, after serving as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and also the one of the only two MPs to be appointed the speaker twice. He was also a member of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly representing Kota South Assembly constituency from 2003 to 2014. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He won the 2024 Lok Sabha Speaker Election as NDA candidate. He is three time MP from from Kota Lok Sabha constituency.

Om Birla was born to Shrikrishna Birla and Shakuntala Devi in a Baniya Hindu family. He completed his master's degree in commerce from Government Commerce College, Kota, and Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University, Ajmer. He married Amita Birla in 1991 and has two daughters, Akansha and Anjali.

Legislative Assembly

Om Birla won his first assembly elections contesting from Kota South in 2003. He defeated Shanti Dhariwal from Congress by a margin of 10,101 votes. In the next assembly elections, he defended his seat with a comfortable margin of 24,300 votes to his nearest candidate Ram Kishan Verma from Congress in 2008. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, he won his third assembly election against Pankaj Mehta (Congress) by close to 50,000 votes in 2013. During his tenure in 2003–08, he was the Parliamentary Secretary (MoS rank) in Rajasthan Government.

Member of Parliament

As the BJP candidate for the Kota constituency, Birla was elected to the 16th, 17th and 18th Lok Sabha.

In the 16th Lok Sabha, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Energy and Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

His selection for the post of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha for the first time was a surprise. He was elected as speaker for the second time in June 2024.

Speaker of the Lok Sabha

On the 19 June 2019 Om Birla was elected Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha, following a motion for election moved by Prime Minister Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam parties also moved notices for Birla and urged him to be impartial as presiding officer of the Lower House. The parliamentary convention for the Republic of India is for the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha to come from the Opposition benches. As of March 2021, uniquely in the history of the Republic, the Lok Sabha approaches two years of a vacant Deputy Speaker seat. Between December 21 & 23, 2023 around 100 MPs of opposition in Loksabha were suspended by him which is considered to be the highest so far in any loksabha tenure & many bills were passed by the house during that time. He won the 2024 Lok Sabha Speaker Election as the NDA candidate by voice vote.

• District president, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha, Kota. (1987–91)
• State president, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha, Rajasthan State. (1991–1997)
• National vice president, Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha (1997–2003)
• MLA From Kota South (2003-2015)
• Member of Parliament from Kota (2014-Present)
• Vice Chairman, National Co-operative Consumer Federation Limited.
• Chairman, CONFED, Jaipur. (June 1992 to June 1995)
• Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha (from 19 June 2019 to 3 March 2024)
• Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha (from 26 June 2024–present)

Parliament Security Breach

In December 2023, some persons breached the parliament security and entered the Lok Sabha raising slogans. When opposition MPs demanded debate on it, Birla didn't permit, instead suspended 100 Opposition MPs for protesting against it. It is the record breaking suspension by any Lok Sabha Speaker.

One-third Bills passed within an hour

Under the chairmanship of Om Birla, a total of 221 Bills were passed in the 17th Lok Sabha. However more than a third of them were passed with less than an hour of discussion, 13% with 1-2 hours of discussion, 22% with 2-3 hours of discussion, and 30% with more than 3 hours of debate. Just 16% of the Bills were referred to standing committees for further scrutiny, declining from 28% in the previous Lok Sabha and well below the 60% and 71% when the first and second UPA governments were in power.

Danish Ali Case

Birla as the Speaker of Lok Sabha did little when Lok Sabha MP Danish Ali was abused by a BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri on the floor of the House in the name of Islamic faith he pursued. Birla only said that Bidhuri would face strict action if he repeated his conduct.

Switching off mics of opposition leaders

Birla has also been accused by opposition leaders that during the tenure of 17 Lok Sabha on many occasions their mics were switched off when they were speaking in the House and Sansad TV channel covering its proceedings focused cameras on the Speaker rather than on leaders  from the opposition benches delivering speeches.

No action to fill deputy speaker’s post

By convention the post of Deputy Speaker should have been occupied by a Lok Sabha Member belonging to  a opposition party. But that convention was not adhered to in 17th Lok Sabha and most importantly Article 93 of the Constitution mandating, among others, that “The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker thereof” has been violated without picking up any one Member of 17th Lok Sabha as Deputy Speaker.  In spite of several letters of opposition parties to Speaker, Om Birla, to initiate action to fill up the post of Deputy Speaker he did precious little to adhere to the Constitutional mandate.

Partisanship at an unbiased position

Barely a few hours after being elected as the Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha for the second time, Birla himself passed a resolution against the Emergency that was imposed on the country about 50 years ago by the Congress government led by late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This was seen as biased act amid roaring demand by Opposition to discuss on the country’s engulfing issue of medical examination paper leaks.