NEW DELHI: With the Lower House witnessing a good lot of fireworks, the Opposition’s no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla ended in a defeat on Wednesday. It was Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s digs at the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi that set off an unprecedented, unstoppable stream of protests from the Opposition benches.
“Sir, they are talking about conduct. When their supreme leader himself winks, goes and hugs the Prime Minister, and blows a flying kiss, sir, this shows he’s provoking,” Shah had said. Within seconds, the Opposition leaders were on their feet, accusing the minister of using “unparliamentary language”.
The voice vote took place as the raucous slogan-shouting continued.
The numbers were stacked up against the opposition from the beginning - the Opposition has only 238 MPs, of whom 99 are from the Congress and the rest from the Samajwadi Party, DMK, Trinamool Congress, and others.
The government has the support of 293 MPs -- 240 from the BJP, 16 from the JDU, 12 from the TDP, and other NDA parties, providing a sufficient majority.
Pushing the matter in such circumstances made it clear that though the motion officially sought the removal of the Speaker, what the Opposition really wanted was to flag their concerns and have their say in parliament.
After a heated debate, Home Minister Amit Shah trashed Rahul Gandhi’s contention that he was not allowed to speak in the House, saying the Congress leader was frequently abroad during sessions and skipped discussions willfully as he “does not want to speak”.
The opposition members rushed into the Well of the House, protesting and raising slogans as the home minister was concluding his speech at the end of the two-day-long debate on the resolution. They demanded an apology for his certain remarks, which they said were “offensive”.
Jagdambika Pal, who was in the chair, urged the opposition to take their seats so that he could put the motion to a vote. Amid the din, the resolution was rejected by a voice vote, following which he adjourned the House for the day.
Speaker Birla was not present in the House during the entire period of the debate.
Earlier, interjecting in the debate, Gandhi said he was stopped from speaking in the Lok Sabha on multiple occasions and asserted that the House does not represent one party but the whole country.
Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has been compromised” and that it was the first time that an LOP was stopped for speaking in the House.
Responding to the debate, the Home Minister hit out at the opposition for bringing the motion for the removal of Birla as Speaker and asserted that the House will be run by its rules and not by the rules of a party.
“We never suppressed the voice of the opposition. The voice of opposition was suppressed during the Emergency when leaders were put in jail. False propaganda is being spread that opposition leaders are not allowed to speak. Rahul Gandhi said he is not allowed to speak. But the fact is he doesn’t want to speak in the Lok Sabha,” Shah said.
Shah shared Gandhi’s attendance in the House and other statistics to rebut allegations of bias made by opposition members against the Speaker.
According to Shah, in the 17th Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi’s attendance was 51 per cent while the average was 66 per cent; in the 16th Lok Sabha, his attendance was 52 per cent while the average was 80 per cent.
He said that in the 17th Lok Sabha, the Congress was allotted 157 hours and 55 minutes, while the party had just 52 members. In comparison, the BJP was given 349 hours and 8 minutes, while the BJP membership stood at 303. “Thus, the Speaker has ensured that the Congress Party received six times more than the BJP,” he said.
Shah claimed that foreign trips were a major reason for Rahul Gandhi’s relatively low attendance during Parliament sessions.
“During the 2025 Winter session, Gandhi was on a visit to Germany. In the Budget session in 2025, he was on a visit to Vietnam; in the Budget session in 2023, he was on a visit to the UK; in the Budget session in 2018, he was on a visit to Singapore and Malaysia; in the Monsoon session in 2020, he was absent the entire session due to foreign travel. In the Budget session in 2015, he travelled abroad for approximately 60 days,” he said.
Shah said Gandhi did not participate in the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018.
The Home Minister said the Speaker serves as a neutral custodian, representing both the ruling party and the opposition. He said it is not an ordinary occurrence as after nearly four decades, such a motion has been brought. He said it was unfortunate for Parliamentary politics that some opposition parties were questioning the integrity of the speaker.
Shah said the BJP has been in opposition for the longest period of time, but the party has never brought a no-confidence motion against the Speaker. He said in India’s parliamentary history, three times a no-confidence motion against the speaker of the Lok Sabha was introduced in the House, but neither the BJP nor the NDA has ever brought such a motion.
Responding to BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad, who cited parliamentary procedures to say that the Leader of Opposition should measure his words carefully, especially on issues of national security, Gandhi, during his interjection, said that his name was being raised during the debate multiple times and “vile things” were being said about him.
With Agency Inputs