Om Birla becomes first Lok Sabha speaker in 20 years to be re-elected as MP

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla won the Kota parliamentary seat by a margin of more than 41,139 votes on Tuesday, thus becoming the first presiding officer in 20 years to be re-elected to the Lower House.

The last Lok Sabha speaker to get re-elected to the Lower House was P A Sangma, who was the presiding officer of the 11th Lok Sabha from 1996 to 1998.

Sangma, then a Congress member, was re-elected from Tura in Meghalaya in the 1998 Lok Sabha election.

In 1999, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) member from Amalapuram in Andhra Pradesh G M C Balayogi was elected as the Lok Sabha speaker. Balayogi died in a helicopter crash in 2002.

Shiv Sena member Manohar Joshi succeeded Balayogi as the Lok Sabha speaker. However, Joshi lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election from the Mumbai North Central constituency to Congress leader Eknath Gaikwad.
 

In 2004, CPI(M) member Somnath Chatterjee, who won the Bolpur seat, was elected as the Lok Sabha Speaker. However, Chatterjee retired from politics before the 2009 Lok Sabha polls following differences with his party.

In 2009, Congress member Meira Kumar won the Sasaram parliamentary seat in Bihar and was elected as the speaker of the 15th Lok Sabha. However, Kumar lost the elections in 2014 and 2019.

In 2014, BJP member from Indore Sumitra Mahajan was elected as the Lok Sabha speaker. Mahajan was not fielded by the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

In 2019, BJP's Birla, the Lok Sabha member from Kota, was elected as the speaker.

In 2024, Birla defeated Congress's Prahlad Gunjal to retain the Kota parliamentary seat.