Who Is Om Birla? Know All About The BJP Nominee For Lok Sabha Speaker Post
Om Birla emerged as a giant killer when he first contested the Assembly election in 2003.
New Delhi, June 18: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Om Birla is the NDA's nominee for Lok Sabha Speaker's post. Om Birla, who represents Rajasthan's Kota-Bundi parliamentary seat in Lok Sabha, has been an MLA from Rajasthan thrice and an MP twice. He will be elected to the post of Lok Sabha Speaker given the clear majority the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) enjoys in the lower house of Parliament.
Born on November 23, 1962, Om Birla became active in students' politics with Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP. He went on to become the national vice-president of the organisation. Although he had been active in students' politics, Om Birla was unsure about his victory when he was first nominated as a candidate by the BJP for the prestigious Kota assembly seat in 2003. 1st Time MPs of BJP: 131 of Saffron Party's 303 Lawmakers in 17th Lok Sabha Are Debutants.
Om Birla had an uphill task to defeat incumbent MLA and a minister in the then Ashok Gehlot government, Shanti Lal Dhariwal. While Dhariwal was confident about his victory, Om Birla was initially hesitant to take up the task. However, he started his campaign. His clean image drew the attention of some undecided voters but many were of the view that he was going to lose eventually. BJP Offers Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Post to YSRCP, Jagan Mohan Reddy Seeks Time.
Dhariwal's campaign machinery was working overtime on the ground. When the result came, Om Birla emerged as a giant killer defeating the Congress candidate by a slender margin. He entered the Rajasthan Assembly for the first time and since then he never looked back. In the next assembly election, he retained his seat with a comfortable margin of 24,300 votes to his nearest candidate Ram Kishan Verma from Congress in 2008.
Om Birla won the Kota Assembly seat for the third consecutive time in 2013. He defeated Congress's Pankaj Mehta by close to 50,000 votes. In 2014, he was elected to Lok Sabha from Kota-Bundi parliamentary seat for the first time. In the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, he retained the seat defeating Congress candidate Ramnarayan Meena by a margin of 2,79,677 votes.
Om Birla has a Master's degree in Commerce. He married Dr Amita Birla in March 1991. The couple have two daughters, Akansha and Anjali. Apart from being a full-time politician, he undertakes a lot of philanthropic activities. Under his Paridhan programme, people belonging to weaker sections of society get free clothes and books. He runs a free meal programme and a medicine bank that provides medicines free of cost to poor.
If elected, Om Birla will succeed eight-term MP Sumitra Mahajan as Lok Sabha speaker. The election for the Speaker's post is scheduled for Wednesday.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 18, 2019 12:33 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).