Om Birla turning blind eye to insult hiding in plain sight

The no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was never going to succeed. Everyone in Parliament — treasury benches, Opposition ranks, even casual observers of arithmetic — knew that. And after the date fiasco — with the motion reading 2025 instead of 2026 — the conclusion was even more obvious.

The ruling alliance has the numbers, the Chair has institutional backing, and the motion’s fate was sealed long before it was moved. Yet Birla’s response to it has been curiously triumphant, almost performative, as though surviving an impossible challenge were a badge of moral victory rather than a moment for introspection.

Indeed, he has come forward to 'rectify' errors in the motion in order to hasten its progress through the Lok Sabha.

Technically, he is right to lean on procedure. Technicalities matter in Parliament. Rules, precedents and the Speaker’s authority form the scaffolding of the House. But hiding behind those technicalities while ignoring the political meaning of the motion risks turning a serious institutional rebuke into a spectacle of virtue signalling.

Speaking of the technical flaws in the Opposition’s notice — points that Birla’s supporters highlighted as proof of procedural superiority — the key objections included:

• Incorrect date references: The original notice reportedly mentioned events of “February 2025” multiple times, a drafting error that could have led to outright rejection under parliamentary rules.

• Scope for procedural rejection: Parliamentary sources said the flawed drafting provided grounds to dismiss the notice at the threshold.

• Speaker’s intervention to rectify defects: Instead of rejecting it, Birla directed the Lok Sabha Secretariat to help correct the defects and proceed with listing it.

• Withdrawal and resubmission: The Opposition withdrew the first notice and submitted a revised version correcting the date error.

• Stepping aside from the Chair: Birla chose not to preside over proceedings until the motion is decided, citing propriety.

But the real story is not that Birla will survive — it is that he was singled out for a no-confidence motion in the first place.

A Speaker being challenged by nearly the entire Opposition is not routine parliamentary theatre. It is, at its core, an extraordinary moment.

The Chair is meant to embody neutrality, restraint and quiet authority. Even the perception of partisanship is usually enough to make Speakers tread cautiously. That so many Opposition parties — across ideological divides — felt compelled to put their names to such a motion is, regardless of outcome, a symbolic indictment.

And yet, the response from Birla’s camp has often sounded less like reflection and more like political point-scoring. By treating the motion as proof of Opposition desperation, he appears to imagine that he is humiliating his critics — that their failure to unseat him diminishes them. In reality, the symbolism cuts both ways.

A no-confidence motion against a Speaker is not merely an attack; it is also a mirror. It reflects how a significant section of the House perceives the Chair. Surviving the vote does not erase the fact that a large bloc of elected representatives felt the Speaker’s conduct had crossed a line.

That is the paradox Birla seems unwilling to confront. He may believe he is exposing the Opposition’s weakness, but the motion itself exposes something far more uncomfortable: the erosion of consensus around the neutrality of the Speaker’s office. Institutional dignity does not rest solely on numbers; it rests on trust. And trust, once publicly questioned, cannot be restored by arithmetic alone.

This is why the current posture risks looking like a search for brownie points rather than a defence of parliamentary values. By leaning into victory narratives — “they tried and failed” — the Speaker risks reducing his office to the level of partisan combat. The Chair is supposed to stand above the fray, not celebrate the defeat of one side as though it were a personal political triumph.

None of this is to deny that Opposition politics has its own dynamics. Motions are often symbolic, designed to send messages beyond the immediate vote. But symbolism cuts both ways. When almost the entire Opposition rises in protest against the Speaker, the message is not only about their grievance — it is about the institutional discomfort surrounding the Chair.

Birla’s challenge, therefore, is not procedural survival but moral perception. The rules may shield him, the numbers may secure him, but neither can erase the deeper question: what does it mean for the Speaker’s authority when neutrality itself becomes a subject of no-confidence?

In celebrating the inevitability of victory, Birla risks overlooking the quieter, harsher reality — that the motion is less an insult to the Opposition than a lasting stain on the dignity of the office he occupies. The real test of a Speaker is not whether he can outlast a motion doomed to fail, but whether he recognises the weight of the accusation behind it.