Lok Sabha Adjourned Amid Row Over Rahul Gandhi’s Right to Speak Before Budget Debate

The Lok Sabha adjourned on February 9, 2026, after a heated exchange between the government and the Opposition on whether Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was to speak before the formal discussion on the Union Budget 202627 resumed. The stalemate culminated into an outburst and sloganising, bringing the House to its knees within minutes when it resumed.

Opposition Pushes to the Intervention of LoP before the Debate

The opposition parties had demanded that Rahul Gandhi should be allowed to bring up what they termed as central national issues before the budget debate in the Lok Sabha. By permitting the Leader of the Opposition to speak prior to the budget debate, according to the Opposition MPs, would have been a respect to parliamentary tradition and have provided an airing to grievances which they felt were being marginalised systematically. This demand met with procedural obstructions on the part of the Chair, which preconditioned a clash which soon got out of hand.

Disputed Commitment and Ruling by Chair Sparks Standoff

The House sat at 2:00 PM, and Speaker Om Birla requested Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to open the debate on the Union Budget 202627. Tharoor refused to do so saying that he would give the Leader of the Opposition the floor instead. Rahul Gandhi afterwards asserted that it was Speaker himself who had assured him that he would get a chance to speak during the debate. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju publicly contradicted this claim, saying that no firm commitment was made and that under parliamentary rules no separate intervention could be made without giving notice. The Chair found that Gandhi was not allowed to participate in any event other than the budget discussion procedure, but he could take part in the budget debate.

Protest, Adjournment and Walk out of Rajya Sabha

This decision brought on such sloganeering on Opposition benches that the Chair had to adjourn the House only a few minutes after it had resumed. The upheaval was also reflected in the Rajya Sabha where the Opposition MPs walked out in sympathy, protesting what they said was the silencing of the Leader of the Opposition in the lower house.
The incidents occur against the background of previous events in the session, such as an incident where Rahul Gandhi was allegedly prevented by discussing an unpublished memoir of former Army Chief General M.M. Naravane regarding the 2020 India China border standoff. Opponents believe the recurring procedural melodramas are indicative of a bigger failure in the levels of trust between the government and the Opposition.

Procedurally, the decision made by the Chair is in line with the norms of the parliament. Politically, though, the episode highlights an increasing failure in the House to deal with dissent without inconvenience - leading to a question that perhaps the insistence on rules is being exercised as governmental discipline or as a means of limiting Opposition conspicuity at momentous times such as the Union Budget debate.