Congratulating Om Birla for being elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha for a second term, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and other opposition MPs on Wednesday hoped they would be allowed to raise the voice of people in the House and incidents like the suspension of MPs will not be repeated.
While the opposition pushed a contest for the post of Speaker by pitching K Suresh against Birla, who was announced elected by a voice vote, Gandhi went and congratulated Birla on the floor of the House. He also accompanied the new Speaker to the Chair along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju. Gandhi said the opposition wanted the House to function "often and well" and added that it was very important that cooperation happened with trust.
Countering the government's claim that the previous Lok Sabha clocked high productivity, the Congress leader also said running the House by silencing the opposition is an undemocratic idea.
"I'd like to congratulate you for your successful election... I congratulate you on behalf of the entire INDIA alliance.
"This House represents the voice of people of India... Of course, the government has political power, but the opposition also represents the voice of India's people," Gandhi said.
He said the opposition would like to assist the Speaker in his work. "I am confident you will allow us to speak in House," he said. Pointing out that this time the opposition represents significantly more voices of the Indian people than last time, Gandhi stressed that it is very important that the voice of opposition is allowed to be represented in the House.
"I am confident that you will allow us to represent our voice, allow us to speak, to represent voice of people of India," the leader of opposition said. The question, he said, is not how efficiently the House is run, but the question is how much of India's voice is allowed to be heard in the House.
"The idea that you can run the House efficiently by silencing the voice of opposition is a non-democratic idea.
"This election has shown that the people of India expect the opposition to defend the Constitution of this country and we are confident that by allowing opposition to speak, you will do your duty of defending the Constitution of India," the Congress MP said.
Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of Samajwadi Party (SP), the third largest party in the House, hoped that actions like suspension of MPs would not be taken as they hurt the dignity of the House.
"We believe you will move forward without discrimination and as the Speaker, you will give equal opportunity and respect to every party. Impartiality is a great responsibility of this great post," Yadav said.
"We expect that the voice of no public representative will be suppressed and actions like suspensions which hurt the dignity of the House will not be taken," he said. On similar lines, TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the suspension of MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha was "not desired".
"It is my firm belief and so far as parliamentary democratic practice is concerned, the House belongs to the opposition. This attitude needs to be adopted by the ruling party," he said.
DMK's T R Baalu also reminded the Speaker that he should treat the opposition and the ruling party in the same manner.
AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi meanwhile said, "The character of the House has changed and BJP won't be able to steamroll... I hope that the government will lessen your burden by electing a Deputy speaker." Similar concerns were expressed by Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Amraam, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MP Supriya Sule, RSP MP N K Premchandran. All of them hoped that the opposition's voice will not be crushed.
