Rahul Gandhi meets Lok Sabha Speaker, says reference to Emergency could have been avoided

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met Speaker Om Birla on Thursday and voiced his displeasure over the reference to Emergency made by the chair, saying it was "clearly political" and could have been avoided. It was a courtesy call during which Gandhi also raised the issue of Emergency being invoked by the Speaker in the House, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal told reporters after the meeting in the Parliament House.

"It was a courtesy call. The Speaker declared Rahul Gandhi as the Leader of Opposition and after that, he along with other INDIA bloc partner leaders met the Speaker," he said.

Asked whether Gandhi discussed the issue of Emergency being raised in the House, Venugopal said, "We discussed so many things about Parliament functioning. Of course, this issue also came up."

"Rahul ji, as Leader of Opposition, informed the Speaker about this issue and said it could have been avoided from the Speaker's reference. That is clearly a political reference, it could have been avoided," the Congress leader said.

Separately, Venugopal also wrote to Birla, expressing the party's displeasure over the bringing of the resolution on the Emergency as his first task after assuming office.

"I am writing this in the context of a very grave matter impacting the very credibility of the institution of Parliament. Yesterday, that is 26 June 2024, at the time of offering felicitations on your election as Speaker Lok Sabha, there was a general camaraderie in the House as such occasions generate," he said in his letter to the Speaker.

"However, what followed thereafter, which is a reference from the Chair after your acceptance speech, in regard to the declaration of Emergency half a century ago, is deeply shocking. Making such a political reference from the Chair is unprecedented in the annals of the history of Parliament. This coming from the Chair as one of the 'first duties' of a newly elected Speaker assumes even graver proportions.

"I, on behalf of the Indian National Congress, express our profound concern and anguish over this travesty of Parliamentary traditions," Venugopal said in his letter to the Speaker.

Soon after his election as Lok Sabha Speaker, Birla had on Wednesday set off a firestorm by reading out a resolution condemning the imposition of Emergency as an attack on the Constitution by then prime minister Indira Gandhi, an act that triggered vociferous protests by Congress member in the House.

Birla recalled that it was on June 26, 1975, that the country woke up to the cruel realities of Emergency when the Congress government jailed opposition leaders, imposed many restrictions on the media and also curbed the autonomy of the judiciary.

Rahul Gandhi's meeting with the Speaker was the first after he assumed charge as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

He was accompanied by Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav and Dimple Yadav, DMK's Kanimozhi, NCP's (SP) Supriya Sule, RJDs Misa Bharti and TMC's Kalyan Banerjee, RSP's N K Premachandran and some others.