Opposition vs CEC Gyanesh Kumar & Om Birla | LME 122 | Pooja Prasanna
Imagine watching a cricket match where the umpire starts favouring one team.
Appeals from one side are ignored. Decisions against the other team come instantly.
At some point, the players start questioning the umpire.
That’s what happened in India this week.
Two of India’s most powerful constitutional offices became the focus of removal attempts.
One runs the Parliament. The other runs elections.
The Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Chief Election Commissioner.
When both these offices face removal attempts in the same week, it raises an obvious question:
Why are Om Birla and Gyanesh Kumar accused of being partisan?
And how difficult is it actually to remove officials holding these positions?
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On September 21, 2023, BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri used a communal slur against BSP MP Danish Ali in the Lok Sabha, repeatedly targeting him because he is a Muslim.
Opposition MPs demanded that the Speaker, Om Birla, suspend Bidhuri for the hate speech. Danish Ali himself made the same demand.
But Birla did not suspend him. He simply warned Bidhuri and expunged the remarks from the record.
Now you might think Om Birla is a Speaker who avoids suspending MPs.
But that’s far from the truth.
During his tenure, the house has suspended more than 120 MPs.
In fact, according to The Quint, of the 245 MPs suspended from the Lok Sabha since 2004, nearly half were suspended under Om Birla.
That’s his record.
And as TMC MP Mahua Moitra pointed out, he is also a Speaker, under whom the House has suspended ONLY opposition MPs.
But suspension was not the opposition’s only concern
The Lok Sabha has not had a Deputy Speaker for nearly seven years. Article 93 of the Constitution states that the House shall elect both a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker.
Traditionally, the Deputy Speaker is chosen from the Opposition. But the position has remained vacant since 2019.
Another concern is how laws are actually made in Parliament.
Before a bill becomes a law, it is convention to send it to a Parliamentary Standing Committee
These committees- that have both ruling and opposition MPs- do the detailed work behind the scenes.
They call experts.
examine every clause and recommend changes.
In other words, they slow the process down so that bad laws do not slip through.
In earlier Lok Sabhas, around 60 to 70 percent of bills were sent to these committees for detailed review.
After 2014, that number dropped sharply to about 27 percent.
And in the most recent Lok Sabha, it has fallen even further.
Today, only about 16 percent of bills are being sent to committees.
Which means most laws are now passing without detailed parliamentary scrutiny.
And this is not just about the rights of the opposition.
It affects you and me directly.
These laws shape our lives
from taxes to technology to criminal law, they are supposed to be carefully examined before they are passed. But the Speaker is simply not sending the bills to the committees.
Then there is the question of what Parliament is actually debating.
Many major national issues have not received a full discussion in the Lok Sabha.
Among them were:
The violence in Manipur
Allegations involving the Adani Group following the report by Hindenburg Research
Border tensions involving China
Electoral roll revision controversies in Bihar
Issues of this scale are exactly what Parliament exists to debate.
MPs question the government.
Ministers respond.
And the country gets to hear both sides.
When those debates do not happen inside the House, one of Parliament’s core functions is weakened.
The opposition has also alleged their microphones tend to mysteriously go silent during debates, and the cameras in Parliament seem remarkably skilled at not showing opposition speakers.
The government and ruling party MPs, meanwhile, have rejected these accusations.
They say the Speaker has followed parliamentary rules — and that disruptions by the opposition are responsible for many of the problems in the House.
All these points were brought up in Parliament
And After several hours of debate, the motion to remove Om Birla was put to a vote on March 11
Not surprisingly, it was defeated by a voice vote
After the vote, Birla told the House he would continue to discharge his duties fairly and impartially.
So the attempt to remove the Speaker has ended, as of now.
But the opposition parties are now preparing a bigger move. An attempt to remove the Chief Election Commissioner.
The head of the institution responsible for conducting elections across India – that position is currently held by Gyanesh Kumar.
A Kerala cadre officer- Gyanesh Kumar recently made headlines for a lot of things
His insistence on speaking chaste Hindi
Actually that was the harmless one of the lot.
His ridiculous explanation on why CCTV footage from polling booths cannot be given to parties
His shifting goalposts on why SIR or a Special Intensive Revision was being conducted in the first place
Opposition leaders say SIR has removed genuine voters from electoral lists.
One of the most vocal critics of the CEC has been Mamata Banerjee. She has accused the Election Commission of deleting legitimate voters during the process.
The Election Commission, of course, has denied these allegations.
But removing the Chief Election Commissioner is far more difficult than removing the Speaker.
Under Indian law, the CEC can only be removed in the same manner as a judge of the Supreme Court. That means the process resembles impeachment.
First, a motion must be introduced in Parliament. If it is introduced in the Lok Sabha, at least 100 MPs must sign the notice. If it is introduced in the Rajya Sabha, at least 50 MPs must sign it.
If the motion is admitted, an inquiry is conducted. And after that, the motion must pass in both Houses of Parliament with a special majority.
That means a majority of the total membership of the House –and two-thirds of the members present and voting.
Only then can the Chief Election Commissioner actually be removed.
Compare that with the Speaker.
Removing the Speaker requires only a simple majority vote in the Lok Sabha.
But the fact that both offices have become the focus of removal attempts in the same week reflects the level of political confrontation around some of India’s key democratic institutions.
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Produced by Megha Mukundan, Script by Lakshmi Priya & Pooja Prasanna, Camera by Ajay R, Edit by Dharini Prabharan