Click to play videoNew Delhi: In a dramatic Sunday of negotiations and alignments the going got tough for the UPA after two MPs of Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) decided to vote against the Government. CNN-IBN projection shows 267 MPs will vote for the Government and 269 against, which makes UPA now four short of the halfway mark.
The final day before the trust vote left the UPA Government tense, anxious and still firefighting. It was a Sunday of stunning turnarounds when loss and gain followed each other like wave upon wave.
The first blow came early when RLD's Ajit Singh, widely expected to vote for the UPA, suddenly switched sides and decided to go with BSP supremo and UP Chief Minister Mayawati. He gets three-four cabinet posts, a favourable seat sharing agreement with the BSP and in the process redefined the political map in Uttar Pradesh.
The second blow came from the JD(S). Again, it was Mayawati who met Deve Gowda on Sunday afternoon and weaned him away from the Congress.
“We will all come together to topple the Government and that is our one-point agenda,” Mayawati said.
The six seats, which the Congress was banking on could prove to be critical for the Government's survival. Meanwhile, Ajit Singh and Deve Gowda are now clearly looking at political careers beyond the 14th Lok Sabha.
But all is not lost for the Government. Good news came form Jharkhand Mukti Morcha supremo Shibu Soren who drove to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi's residence with his four MPs.
Chief Minister of Jharkhand Madhu Koda soon followed and after a 90-minute meeting, Soren settled for a cabinet berth, a MOS post and the deputy chief minister's post for his younger son. For the Congress Soren’s demands at this point seemed like small change for a Government battling to survive.
Good news for the UPA is also expected from Omar Abdullah's National Conference. It is widely expected that he would vote for the UPA as the nuclear debate unfolds in Parliament on Monday.
The crisis managers of the UPA have one more night to salvage support, the fight is to either win over Independents and the other undecided MPs or get them to abstain. Now every vote counts and every MP is worth his weight in gold and more.
The trust vote, which former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee lost in 1999, was thought to be the closest parliamentary battle ever. Now this trust vote is promising to be a replay of that dramatic confidence vote. But whatever be the outcome, Indian politics will never be the same again.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE NEXT TWO DAYS |
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 CNN-IBN projection: Government little behind in the race for MPs, 267 favour the deal while 269 are against it. |
| The five undecided MPs will play a crucial role. The list includes three Independents, one from Mizo National Front and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress. |
| Abstentions can be helpful for the UPA. Five BJP MPs didn't turn up at the NDA dinner. |
| The actual vote takes place on Tuesday, anytime between 8 and 10 pm. |
NEXT PAGE: DINNER DIPLOMACY
Dinner diplomacy ahead of trust vote
As the big vote stared at their face, rival leaders of two major alliances on Sunday night took the dinner route to complete the trust vote solidarity exercise with two rebel MPS being at the centre of attention.
Dinner diplomacy was in full flow at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meal for MPs from his Congress party, UPA constituents and new ally Samajwadi Party at the Ashoka Hotel. In a spirit of bonhomie, a confident looking prime minister went from table to table and greeted all his backers.
“Dinner has been well attended as expected. On July 22, UPA is going to win the trust-vote. There are invisible voters who will extend their support to UPA on the crucial day. The ‘tsunami’ involving Mayawati will be a big disaster. There is no entity like UNPA now,” Congress Spokesperson Veerappa Moily said.
Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, the BJP MP who defected to Samajwadi Party, was escorted by SP leader Amar Singh to the dinner straight from a press conference in which his decision was announced.
Despite an invitation by the UPA managers to the National Conference, which has two MPs, none attended the dinner fuelling speculation on which way the group will go.
At the NDA dinner hosted by BJP's prime minister-in-waiting L K Advani at Parliament Annexe, rebel Congress MP Kuldeep Bishnoi grabbed all the eyeballs.
Bishnoi, son of Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, dropped a bombshell in continuing allegations of horse-trading claiming that he was approached by a person "very close" to him with Rs 100 crore to abstain during the trust vote.
"I was also offered a ministership in return of supporting the nuclear deal," Bishnoi told reporters.
However, he refused to divulge the identity of the person who made the offer.
(With inputs from Sumit Pande and Pallavi Ghosh)
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