SUSPENSIONS, SLANDER, SILENT PROTEST: AS OM BIRLA RETURNS, A LOOK BACK
THE 18TH Lok Sabha got off on a contentious note on Wednesday after Om Birla, newly re-elected as Speaker, referred to the Emergency in his first address to the Lok Sabha, underlining the Congress’s role in it and seeking a resolution against the “blot on our history”.
This was shortly after Opposition leaders, while offering their congratulations to Birla on his re-election, expressed their hope that the new Parliament will be less stormy than the last one, with a record hundred MPs suspended under him as Speaker.
On Thursday, the Congress wrote to Birla, saying that his reference to the Emergency in his acceptance speech on Wednesday was “deeply shocking”. “Making of such a political reference from the Chair is unprecedented in the annals of the history of Parliament,” Congress general secretary K C Venugopal wrote. He told reporters that Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi had also raised the issue during his courtesy visit to Birla on Thursday.
With this, the spotlight was back on Birla’s chequered record as Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha, even as he returns to the Chair in a new-look Parliament. Here are the highs and lows of Birla’s previous tenure as Speaker:
Suspension of MPs
In December last year, over the course of the Winter Session of the 17th Lok Sabha, as many as 100 Opposition MPs were suspended. The suspensions were provoked by the Opposition’s protests demanding a statement from Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the security breach in Parliament that month, with four people managing to jump into the Well and release coloured gas from canisters.
Correspondingly, 46 Opposition members were suspended from the Rajya Sabha — making it the biggest number of simultaneous suspensions in a Parliament Session.
The Congress, as the largest Opposition party, saw the most suspensions, with 41 of its MPs facing action. After the Congress, the DMK, TMC and JD(U) faced the most suspensions, at 16, 13 and 11, respectively.
Birla claimed at the time that it was wrong to link the suspensions to the security breach, and that he had only taken action to “preserve the sanctity of the House”.
Other Sessions of Parliament in Birla’s previous tenure too saw suspension of Opposition MPs.
Passage of Bills
While Parliament Sessions were marked by routine ruckus, including over suspensions of MPs, Birla had largely allowed legislative business to continue interrupted, with important Bills passed without much discussion. These included legislation seeking overhaul of the criminal laws, the Central Goods and Services Tax (Second Amendment) Bill and the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill.
On Wednesday, after the election of Birla as Speaker, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant recalled the passage of the Bill on the appointment of Election Commissioners in the last Lok Sabha. The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2021, and The Inland Vessels Bill, 2021, were also passed in the Lok Sabha without debate as the Opposition protested over the Pegasus row and farmers’ issues.
In November, 2021, the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, cleared the two Houses via voice vote without any discussion, despite demands by the Congress, TMC and DMK. The Opposition also wanted a debate on issues raised by farmers protesting against the three new agriculture laws, which were later withdrawn by the government.
Slander on the floor
In September last year, then BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri used derogatory communal remarks against fellow parliamentarian Danish Ali (then in the BSP, now the Congress), during a debate in the Lok Sabha over the Chandrayaan 3 mission.
Birla expunged Bidhuri’s remarks, and also issued a warning to him against repeating his actions. But it was only after Ali and other Opposition MPs said that Birla’s censure against Bidhuri was not enough was the matter referred to the Privileges Committee. While doing so, Birla clubbed this with a complaint by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey that Ali had “instigated” Bidhuri into making the communal slurs.
In a letter to Birla, Ali expressed anguish over being treated as a co-accused rather than someone who was “wronged”.
Later, Bidhuri, who was given the charge of an area in Rajasthan during the Assembly elections in the state, skipped appearing before the Privileges Committee, expressing his inability to do so. Ali also wrote to Birla complaining about the functioning of the Privileges Committee, questioning its decision to allow Bidhuri to depose before it ahead of him.
In November 2023, The Indian Express reported that the Privileges Committee had failed to meet for over a month to consider the matter, with the next meeting still awaited. In contrast, the Ethics Committee examining the favours-for-query allegations against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra had wrapped up its proceedings and recommended her expulsion all within 23 days.
In December 2023, Bidhuri submitted an apology before the panel for his remarks.
When Birla stayed away
Ahead of the Monsoon Session last year, Birla announced that he would stay away from the Lok Sabha proceedings, and return only if members behaved with “dignity”. At the time, the Opposition and BJP had frequently clashed in the House over the Manipur issue.
BJP MPs argued that the Opposition members were solely to blame, and that Birla was upset over even interventions by ministers being “disrupted”.
Earlier, during the Budget Session in March 2020, Birla had skipped the House for two consecutive days, claiming “hurt” over the chaos in the House.
Giving first-time MPs a chance
In his speech greeting Birla on his re-election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday: “Under your guidance, the productivity of the 17th Lok Sabha was the highest in 25 years at 97 per cent. For this, not just the honourable members but you also deserve special appreciation.”
In June 2023, The Indian Express reported that a review held by Birla on completion of four years in office noted the saving of Rs 801.46 crore under the budget allocated for the Lok Sabha secretariat, via “effective monitoring and economy in expenditure”.
Lauding Birla for establishing “new benchmarks for Parliamentary traditions”, Union Minister and JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh spoke Wednesday about how he had run the House till midnight to give an opportunity to first-time MPs to speak and, on several occasions, allowed only women members to speak during Zero Hour.
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2024-06-27T16:11:28Z dg43tfdfdgfd