Amid strained ties with the Opposition parties, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday (February 23, 2026) constituted Parliamentary Friendship Groups with more than 60 countries, comprising various Opposition members, including those suspended from the Lower House recently for unruly behaviour.
The decision of the Lok Sabha Speaker comes amid an Opposition plan to remove him from office, alleging partisan conduct in the House.
Prominent Opposition leaders such as Shashi Tharoor (Congress), P. Chidambaram (Congress), Gaurav Gogoi (Congress), K. Kanimozhi (DMK), Derek O’Brien (Trinamool Congress), Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Arvind Sawant (SS-UBT), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM), Akhilesh Yadav and Ram Gopal Yadav (Samajwadi Party) will chair the parliamentary groups, each having 11 members.
Senior BJP leaders such as Ravi Shankar Prasad, Baijayant Panda, Nishikant Dubey, and Anurag Thakur have also been appointed as chairpersons of the parliamentary groups.
Speaker Om Birla says he advised PM not to come to Lok Sabha, had ‘definite information’ of Opposition protests
