HOUSE CAPTAIN
The newly appointed Lok Sabha speaker is known for his enthusiasm for debate in Parliament and for charitable work in his constituency
Everything you didn’t know about new Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla
There were whispers in the corridors after word got out that a little-known MP from Kota, Rajasthan, Om Birla, was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s choice for the post of Lok Sabha speaker. But the prime minister has been known to back unknown quantities before, some of whom have turned out to be bright sparks for the party. The choice of a Brahmin chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, in Maratha-dominated Maharashtra; a Punjabi counterpart, Manohar Lal Khattar, in Jat-dominated Haryana; and Raghubar Das in tribal-dominated Jharkhand are some of the popular examples.
The 57-year-old Birla is cut from the same cloth. A member of the Bania trading caste, he is perhaps one of the first Lok Sabha speakers who, like Modi and Shah, comes from an entirely Hindi or non-English-speaking background. Hailing from a third-generation RSS family, Birla worked with the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), in his formative years. This was the time he grew close to Venkaiah Naidu, who was BJP president at the time, and national BJP treasurer and Rajasthan BJP president Ramdas Agrawal. Old-timers in Kota recall that he rose as a leader because of his ability to hold public demonstrations on even small but powerful public issues. In 1978, as a member of the BJP students’ wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Birla lay down before the car of Bhanvarlal Sharma, a minister in the then Bhairon Singh Shekhawat government, while leading an agitation for jobs for locals in Kota’s local industry.
This desire to fight for public causes became a will to do public
good as he became two-term MLA and first-term MP. He soon acquired a reputation for promoting public causes when, along with a set of local philanthropists he calls ‘Bhamashahs’ (after the businessman who helped Rana Pratap in his time of distress), he started providing prasadam (free food), nishulk paridhan uphaar (clothes), chappal vitaran (footwear) to the needy in his constituency and even nishulk kambal nidhi (blankets) and shelter in winters. He also runs a medicine bank and a stopgap school for illiterate women. His wife Amita is a doctor with the Rajasthan government.
The philanthropy apart, Birla over the years has demonstrated the ability to take everyone along. He has a good equation with Opposition leaders—Shanti Dhariwal, Congress veteran and Rajasthan urban development and housing minister, for example. Few speak against him. He might not have any experience as parliamentary affairs minister, having been only a parliamentary secretary, but Modi chose him for his service record as an MP and as a debater in the Lok Sabha. He asked 671 questions and took part in 118 debates.
Soon after his appointment as speaker, Birla said he would be “just and fair... that’s the only way to succeed as a speaker”. Welcoming him, the prime minister told him, “We assure you of all cooperation, but if there is violation of norms from the treasury benches, it will be your right to intervene and not hesitate in calling people of even our stature to maintain order for the sake of maintaining the dignity of the House. We will welcome it.” Putting the House in order—the brief may sound simple, but Birla will have to demonstrate great dexterity in managing a Lok Sabha which has shown its unruly side too often.
BIRLA HAS SHOWN THE ABILITY TO TAKE EVERYONE ALONG. HE HAS A GOOD EQUATION WITH OPPOSITION LEADERS