New Delhi: Supporting the no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, TMC MP Mahua Moitra Tuesday called it “divine Karma” that she was opening the debate for her party in the no-confidence motion.
Moitra said she was the “…lady MP who was illegally witch-hunted by this misogynistic government, wrongly expelled by an ethics committee which had no power to expel, after a motion in which I was not allowed to speak, where the Speaker in violation of every principle of natural justice did not allow me to defend myself. Today I am opening the debate for my party in a motion of no confidence against that very Speaker.”
“You can’t run away from Karma,” Mahua Moitra added.
The resolution to impeach the Speaker was tabled in Lok Sabha by Congress MP Mohammad Jawed. The motion was signed by 118 Opposition MPs, alleging that the Speaker had been “partisan”, especially when he “did not allow” Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to speak in the House.
She pointed out that Birla had not allowed a single adjournment motion.
She said that the Speaker had achieved many firsts, but added that “unfortunately all of them have been less than graceful benchmarks”.
“He keeps talking about the garima (gravitas) of the House but it has come to a point that the minute the Speaker comes to the House, garima leaves the House,” Moitra added.
Mahua Moitra further accused Birla of not allowing Oppositon members to speak, saying, “In the last Lok Sabha, he (Birla) perfected the art, under his guardianship, the art of switching off the mic of opposition members mid-sentence, of ensuring Sansad TV paid for by taxpayers’ money blacks us all out. When we stand up, he says it is a technical glitch, we believe it.”
“The government has made a circus of Parliamentary democracy and if the Speaker is going to concede to being a complicit ring master, it is very sad for Indian democracy,” Moitra added.
‘In the name of God, go’
Mahua Moitra pointed out that the Speaker did not allow a discussion on Manipur until a no-confidence motion was brought in.
“When BJP MP Ramesh Bhiduri stood in this House and he called Danish Ali, another fellow MP a ‘katua, musalman atankwadi’, Birla-ji did nothing. You failed not only Danish bhai but you failed 200 million Muslims of this country,” she recalled, pointing out that Bhiduri was never suspended for his remarks.
In September 2023, Bhiduri had made communal remarks in the Lok Sabha against Ali, creating a political storm. His remarks were expunged by Birla, and he also tendered an apology to the privileges committee three months later.
She listed the motions that had been disallowed, including those on the Hindenburg report, Chinese aggression into Indian territory, the Indo-US trade deal, and the Epstein files.
She also referred to Birla stating in the House that he had “concrete information” that Congress members might carry out “some unexpected act” towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as a result of which he had requested him not to come to the House to reply to the discussion on the motion of thanks on the President’s address.
Women MPs of the Congress party had then written to Birla, asserting that the PM’s absence from the House was not due to any threat from them but was an “act of fear”.
“The Prime Minister is too scared to come to this House and the Speaker is covering up for him in this ridiculous manner, denigrating women without any substance,” Moitra said.
She ended her speech by quoting former Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, Oliver Cromwell, who had said, “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
‘Antithesis of democracy’
In her speech, Moitra spoke about Birla’s use of Rule 374A of the Lok Sabha Rules and Proceedings, which allows the Speaker to immediately suspend members without a formal motion in case of grave disorder. She alleged that “the way it has been abused by the current Speaker is the very antithesis of democracy”.
She referred to the mass suspension of 100 Opposition MPs in December 2023, for protesting and demanding a statement from the government on the security breach in Parliament. While the MPs were suspended, the three criminal code bills were passed by the Lok Sabha, Moitra said.
Moitra recalled all the times in history when no-confidence motions had been initiated against Speakers of the House. She pointed out that in earlier cases, there was a Deputy Speaker to preside over the proceedings of the House while the motion was being debated.
“Today, there is no Deputy Speaker. In the 17th and 18th Lok Sabhas, for the past seven years, the post of the Deputy Speaker has been kept vacant,” she said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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