Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi and other MPs protest at the Makar Dwar Parliament against the suspension of eight Lok Sabha MPs and the India-US trade deal during the ongoing budget session on February 3, 2026 | Photo credit: ANI
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday (February 3, 2026) wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla strongly protesting against not allowing him to speak in the House on the issue of national security, calling it a “stain” on our democracy.
In his letter to Mr. Birla, the Congress leader noted that when he spoke in the Motion to the President’s Address on Monday (February 2, 2026), the Speaker directed him to verify the magazine he was going to refer to when highlighting the India-China conflict in 2020.
Mr. Gandhi said that by long-standing convention, including repeated rulings by past Speakers, a member wishing to refer to a document in the House was required to acknowledge it and acknowledge responsibility for its contents, which he did.
After that, Mr. Gandhi said, the Speaker allows the member to quote or refer to the document, and it is the Government’s responsibility to respond, and the Speaker’s role is closed.
“Preventing me from speaking in the Lok Sabha today not only violates that convention but also raises serious concerns that there is a deliberate attempt to prevent me as Leader of the Opposition from speaking on matters of national security.
“It is worth repeating that national security was a key part of the President’s speech, which requires discussion in Parliament,” Gandhi told Mr. Birla in his letter.
As an impartial administrator of the House, he said it is the constitutional and parliamentary responsibility of the Speaker to protect the rights of every member, including those of the opposition. The right of the Leader of the Opposition and every MP to speak is an integral part of our democracy, he noted.
“The denial of these basic democratic rights has led to an unprecedented situation. For the first time in the history of parliament, the speaker was forced to prevent the leader of the opposition from giving a presidential speech,” the Congress president said in his letter.
“This is a stain on our democracy against which I register my strongest protest,” Gandhi said. Earlier in the day, Mr Gandhi authenticated a copy of an article in the Lok Sabha citing the unpublished “memoirs” of former army chief MM Naravane, but failed to end the deadlock over the issue, leading to a brief adjournment.
With Mr Gandhi insisting on raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, Speaker Krishna Prasad Tenneti moved on to other speakers and asked the TDP’s Harish Balayogi, an NDA voter, to address the President’s address after three opposition MPs refused to speak in solidarity with Mr Gandhi.
Published – 03 Feb 2026 19:47 IST