LS Speaker Om Birla to lead Indian delegation to 206th session of Governing Council of IPU

New Delhi [India], October 30 (ANI): Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will lead the Indian Parliamentary delegation to the 206th Session of the Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which will be held from November 1 to 4, 2020.
This will be an Extraordinary Virtual Session, which is being organised in place of a full-fledged in-person Statutory Assembly of IPU due to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to an official release.
The agenda of the virtual session includes the election of the new president of IPU through remote electronic secret ballot since the outgoing President of IPU Gabriela Cuevas Barron (MP, Mexico) had completed her term on October 19.
The term of the new president of IPU will be from 2020-23.
The Indian delegation has Lok Sabha MP Poonamben Hematbhai Maadam and Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta who will participate in the session and will cast their votes.
Lok Sabha Secretary-General Snehlata Shrivastava and Rajya Sabha Secretary-General Desh Deepak Verma will also attend the session.
Moreover, Dr Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat is the Secretary to the Delegation.
As per the release, there are four candidates in the fray for the election of IPU President- Duarte Pacheco from Portugal, Muhammad Sanjrani from Pakistan, Akmal Saidov from Uzbekistan and Salma Ataullahjan from Canada. (ANI)