Lok Sabha Speaker Election: Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP Likely To Support NDA Candidate Om Birla

Lok Sabha Speaker Election: The YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSRCP, which has four members in the Lok Sabha, is likely to support NDA candidate Om Birla in Wednesday's election for the post of Speaker of the Parliament's lower House, as per sources cited by news agency PTI.

"Officially we will announce our decision tomorrow but our support will be natural for the NDA candidate," YSRCP sources told PTI on Tuesday. The YSRCP has extended much-needed outside support to the BJP-led NDA on several occasions in the Parliament.

The flip side of this bitter-sweet relationship between the BJP and the YSRCP was witnessed in the recent simultaneous Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls. The YSRCP faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of an NDA front comprising the BJP, the TDP, and the Jana Sena.

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The YSRCP managed to win just four out of the 25 Lok Sabha seats spread across the state. In the Assembly polls, the YSRCP lost power to the NDA after the former's candidates won only 11 of the 175 seats in the state legislature.

A senior YSRCP leader said the party never opposed NDA's decisions earlier and the same trend will continue, PTI said in its report. PTI's sources further noted that none of YSRCP's MPs were in touch with the INDIA Opposition bloc, which has fielded Congress MP K Suresh against Birla for the Speaker post.

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The upcoming vote will be the first election for Lok Sabha Speaker in decades. The election has been necessitated by the failure of the ruling NDA and the Opposition INDIA bloc to reach a consensus regarding the appointment. The NDA, which commands 293 MPs in the 543-member Lok Sabha, holds a clear majority, while the opposition INDIA bloc comprises 234 MPs.

On Tuesday, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said that the INDIA alliance had communicated to the BJP about its willingness to support NDA's Speaker candidate on the condition that the Deputy Speaker post be given to an Opposition MP. However, as per Gandhi's claims, the proposition was ignored. 

(With inputs from agencies)