Motion of Thanks to President’s address passed in Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address without a reply from the government, amid sustained protests by Opposition members over Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi not being allowed to conclude his speech.Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh were not present in the House when Speaker Om Birla took up the motion for voting. Opposition MPs had already moved into the Well of the House around noon after the Question Hour failed to function due to disruptions.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla first took up the amendments moved by Opposition members for voting, all of which were defeated through a voice vote. He then put the Motion of Thanks itself to vote, which was passed amid the din. Following the proceedings, the House was adjourned till 2 pm, when the general discussion on the Budget was scheduled to be taken up.The Opposition protested the decision to disallow Rahul Gandhi from continuing his speech after he referred to an unreleased memoir of former Army chief General (Retd) M.M. Naravane. In protest, Opposition members refused to participate further in the debate.
Only three MPs—Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya and TDP’s G.M. Harish Balayogi—spoke at length during the discussion. BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey and P.P. Chaudhary also made brief interventions.Senior Opposition leaders, including Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and Naresh Uttam Yadav, Trinamool Congress MP Shatabdi Roy and DMK leader T.R. Baalu, were called to speak but declined, insisting that the Leader of Opposition should first be allowed to complete his address.The episode recalled a similar instance in June 2004, when then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was unable to deliver his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks in the Lok Sabha due to protests by the BJP. Singh had then requested the House to put the motion to vote without his reply, a point he later mentioned in his 2005 address to Parliament.Thursday’s developments underscored the heightened political tensions in the House, with proceedings on a key parliamentary motion concluding without the customary response from the Prime Minister.