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.  They also urged Speaker to ensure impartiality.

Rahul 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,” Rahul 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, Rahul 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.