Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday directed the Secretary General of the House to investigate the no-confidence motion moved against him and take appropriate action.
Congress today submitted a notice of no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said, “Today at 1:14 pm we moved a no-confidence motion against the Speaker under Rule 94C.”
According to Congress sources, a total of 118 MPs have signed the no-confidence motion against the Lok Sabha Speaker.
According to sources, opposition MPs alleged “blatantly partisan” conduct and said leaders of opposition parties were not allowed to speak.
Sources said that the notice of no-confidence motion has mentioned four incidents against the Speaker, including the opposition’s allegation that Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to speak in the House during the discussion on the motion of thanks on the President’s address.
Rahul Gandhi cited General MM Naravane’s unpublished memoir to discuss the 2020 standoff with China.
Sources said opposition MPs also took issue with the suspension of eight MPs, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s “objectionable and personal attacks” on former prime ministers and Speaker Om Birla’s statement in which he had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the House to avoid any untoward incident after receiving information that some Congress MPs were “committing an unprecedented incident” by coming to the Prime Minister’s seat.
Congress MP Manickam Tagore said on social media platform X that the opposition had taken such a step under “extraordinary circumstances”.
Tagore wrote, “The Opposition has expressed confidence in constitutional propriety. With personal respect for the Honorable Speaker, we are distressed and saddened by the opposition MPs being consistently denied opportunities to raise issues of public importance. After many years, a no-confidence motion has been moved against the Speaker – an extraordinary step arising out of extraordinary circumstances.”
Meanwhile, Abhishek Banerjee today said that Trinamool Congress has asked the Congress to submit an appeal to Speaker Om Birla before bringing the no-confidence motion against him.
TMC said that if the Speaker does not act on the opposition’s appeal within two to three days, the party will sign the no-confidence motion.
Abhishek Banerjee told reporters, “Yesterday also we had made it clear that all TMC MPs will sign the no-confidence motion, but we had suggested them that on issues like suspension of MPs, opposition leader not being allowed to speak, false allegations being made on women MPs and the Speaker working in a biased manner, we should first write a protest letter to the Speaker, which should be signed by all the opposition MPs, and we should give the Speaker two-three days’ time.”
He said, “If the Speaker does not take any action on this, the option of moving a no-confidence motion is always open to us; we have no objection.”