From cooperative movement leader to Lok Sabha Speaker: 10 points about Om Birla

Om Birla, BJP MP from Kota began his political career a the president of the students union in a government higher secondary school in Kota in 1978.

Om Birla, a second-term BJP Lok Sabha MP from Kota-Bundi parliamentary seat in Rajasthan, was elected the speaker of the lower house of India’s Parliament on Wednesday.

Om Birla rose from politics of cooperative movement (societies). Birla, 56, has travelled a long way from being a student leader to the NDA candidate for Lok Sabha Speaker.

Here are 10 points about Birla:

1. Born on December 4, 1962, in Kota, Om Birla was students’ union president of the government senior secondary school, Gumanpura, Kota in 1978.

2. He was a president of the Rajasthan unit of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM)

3. Birla became president of the Kota cooperative consumer wholesale store limited in his early days of politics.

4. Om Birla had contested and won his first Lok Sabha polls in 2014 when he defeated scion of Kota royal family, Ijyaraj Singh of the Congress by 200782 votes.

5. In the 2019 general elections, Birla defeated Congress candidate, Ramnarayan Meena by 279677 votes.

6. Birla had also contested three assembly polls from Kota South and had never lost.

7. He served as parliamentary secretary in the former CM Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government from 2003 to 2008.

8. Birla holds an M.Com degree from Ajmer’s Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati University

10. Om Birla’s wife Dr Amita Birla is a gynecologist in the government hospital of Kota. Birla has two daughters named Akansha and Anjali.