Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi congratulated Om Birla for being elected as the Lok Sabha Speaker for a second term. He said he hopes the Opposition is allowed to raise the voice of people. Other opposition leaders said they hope incidents like mass suspension of MPs would not be repeated.
"I would like to congratulate you for your successful election that you have been elected for the second time. I would like to congratulate you on behalf of the entire Opposition and the INDIA alliance. This House represents the voice of India's people and you are the final arbiter of that voice. The government has political power but the opposition also represents the voice of India's people and this time, the opposition represents significantly more voice of the Indian people than it did last time. The opposition would like to assist you in doing your work. We would like the House to function often and well. It is very important that cooperation happens on the basis of trust. It is very important that the voice of the Opposition is allowed to be represented in this House,” said Gandhi.
Gandhi also went and congratulated the Speaker on the floor of the House. He was accompanied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju. The INDIA bloc had pitched K Suresh’s name for the post of the Speaker, against NDA’s candidacy of Om Birla, who was elected by a voice vote.
Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav said that actions like suspension of MPs should not be taken as it hurts the dignity of the House. "We believe you will move forward without discrimination and as the Speaker, you will give equal opportunity and respect to every party. Impartiality is a great responsibility of this great post. We expect that the voice of no public representative will be suppressed and actions like suspensions which hurt the dignity of the House will not be taken," said Yadav.
TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay also spoke about the suspension of MPs in the 17th Lok Sabha. Calling it an action that was “not desired”, Bandyopadhyay said, "It is my firm belief and so far as parliamentary democratic practice is concerned, the House belongs to the opposition. This attitude needs to be adopted by the ruling party.”
AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi said that the BJP won’t be able to ‘steam roll’, while DMK's T R Baalu reminded the Speaker that he should treat the opposition and the ruling party in the same manner.
Similar concerns were expressed by Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Amraam, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Arvind Sawant, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MP Supriya Sule, RSP MP N K Premchandran too.