Opposition members on Thursday handed Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla a petition saying leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was not being allowed to speak in the House and accusing the Treasury benches of systematically silencing INDIA bloc MPs.
The petition flagged other issues too, such as the absence of a deputy Speaker — a post to which, by convention, an Opposition member is elected — and the government’s reluctance to hold discussions on key issues.
Signed by MPs from the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, DMK, Shiv Sena (UBT) and other INDIA bloc parties, the petition seemed to underline Opposition unity.
“A delegation of the INDIA bloc met the Speaker and gave a letter which has the signatures of the leaders from the alliance,” the Congress’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, told reporters. “We wrote in the letter how the ruling party is violating the traditions, rules and culture of the House.”
The petition and the meeting with the Speaker came a day after Rahul alleged he was not being allowed to speak in the House. This was after Birla had reprimanded the leader of the Opposition (LoP) for conduct “not up to the high standards of the House”.
While the Speaker did not specify the conduct he was objecting to, BJP social media head Amit Malviya slammed Rahul on X for his “unparliamentary behaviour” and attached a video.
It showed Rahul playfully squeezing the cheeks of his sister and MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra while a Congress member was speaking in the House. The BJP’s official handle too later posted the video.
At the meeting with the Speaker, the Opposition delegation is understood to have raised the subject of Malviya’s X post and castigated the BJP for using House videos to target Rahul politically.
Gogoi told reporters he could not reveal all the details of the meeting with the Speaker. He, however, obliquely alluded to the Malviya post.
“Yesterday, the Speaker said that the LoP should follow Rule 349 (which deals with MPs’ conduct inside the House), but he did not clarify which incident he was referring to,” Gogoi said. “In the evening, this incident was politicised outside the House.”
The letter to the Speaker accused the Treasury benches of not allowing Rahul to speak in the Lok Sabha on important issues, stressing this ran counter to House conventions.
Rahul had on Wednesday said the Speaker had adjourned the House and left when he asked for an opportunity to speak after being named by the Chair for improper conduct.
On Thursday, Rahul said he would “never be allowed to speak”.
“We pointed out to the Speaker that there has been a convention in the House that whenever the LoP wants to raise something important, he is allowed (to do so). In this Lok Sabha, however, the LoP is rarely allowed to speak,” a Congress MP told The Telegraph.
“We also raised how the Opposition MPs are never allowed to raise a point of order in the House and how our mikes get switched off when we try to make important interventions.”