Rahul Gandhi meets Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, flags issues for House

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi along with some opposition leaders on Monday met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and apprised him about the issues he wants to raise in the House.

The meeting, which lasted a few minutes, took place after proceedings in the lower house were adjourned for the day amid a standoff between the government and the opposition over Gandhi's demand that he be allowed to speak before the discussion on the Union Budget begins.

Sources said Gandhi told the Speaker that he wanted to raise the issue of suspension of eight Congress MPs and other issues relating to Parliament, including the charges made against the women MPs.


Birla had stated in the House last week that he had "concrete information" that many Congress members might move towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi's seat and carry out "some unexpected act" 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.

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TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, DMK leader T R Baalu and Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav were also along with Gandhi during his meeting with the Speaker.

The opposition leaders urged the Speaker to revoke the suspension of eight opposition MPs of Lok Sabha to end the stalemate.

Lok Sabha has been witnessing disruptions since February 3 after Gandhi was disallowed by the chair from quoting from an article based on excerpts of former Army chief M M Naravane's 'unpublished memoir' in which he has referred to the India-China conflict of 2020.