TMC Backs No-Confidence Motion Against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla

Weeks after the Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs refused to sign the Opposition’s notice for a no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the party on Saturday said that it would back the motion, bolstering the INDIA bloc’s fight against the BJP-led NDA government. The Lok Sabha is likely to take up the Opposition’s resolution against the Speaker on Monday when Parliament will reconvene for the second half of the Budget session. TMC MPs told The Indian Express that party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is sitting on a dharna in Kolkata against the deletion of voters’ names in the SIR exercise, had directed the MPs on Saturday to support the no-confidence motion. The TMC has 28 members in the Lok Sabha. Speaking to The Indian Express on Saturday afternoon, a senior TMC MP said, “We have always said we will support the motion. The question was only the timing. In the first half of the Budget session, our Lok Sabha leader, Abhishek Banerjee, had said that the party would like to give a few days to the Speaker to reconsider. Now that time has long passed. Of course, we support the motion. There has been no shift in our stand.” On February 10, the Opposition had submitted a notice with signatures of 118 MPs for a no-confidence motion against Birla, after the Speaker did not let the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, quote from or speak about former Indian Army chief General M M Naravane’s unpublished memoir. Birla also claimed that he had cautioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to come to the House, as he might be attacked there. Amid disruptions, Birla suspended eight Opposition MPs from the House. After the Lok Sabha Secretariat admitted the notice for a no-confidence motion against him in the first half of the Budget Session, Birla kept away from chairing the Session, leaving the same to a panel of chairpersons till the matter was resolved. TMC MPs said that while the party didn’t initially sign the notice, it didn’t want to be “isolated in this fight” for freedom to speak in Parliament. “It was a decision that needed time. It would not have been wise for the party to not support a motion against the Speaker when all other Opposition parties are on board,” said a TMC MP. When the motion was moved by the Congress on February 10, the TMC had said it would like to wait for a few days to give the Chair time to reconsider the issues. TMC Parliamentary Party Leader for Lok Sabha, Abhishek Banerjee, had at the time made it clear that the party “believed in being more tolerant” and did not want to “flex muscles” through the notice. “My stand is we should be seen as someone who is more tolerant — and we are,” he had said on February 10. The government had hoped to politically isolate the Congress on the notice by weaning away the smaller parties on the Opposition side. But with the TMC on Saturday announcing its support for the motion, the INDIA bloc’s political fight against the BJP-led NDA government and Birla has been strengthened. If the motion is taken up in the Lok Sabha, a discussion will be held on it. If the Opposition does not want to move ahead, it can withdraw the notice when the matter comes up in the Lok Sabha on Monday.