Click to play videoNew Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted on Monday that he was “100 per cent” confident of winning the trust vote as the UPA and Opposition clashed in Parliament at the start of a two-day debate on the India-US nuclear deal.
The Opposition was confident of pulling down the Government with the Left, BJP and Third Front leaders accusing the UPA of compromising national interest.
On the numbers front, CNN-IBN projects that the UPA has 269 votes in favour, 268 against, 3 MPs are undecided and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is the sole MP who has publicly said that she would abstain on Tuesday.
The Government will not need 271 MPs to vote for it though, because at least 10 MPs will abstain during voting, sources tell CNN-IBN. Half of these MPs could be from the BJP—2 from the Karnataka BJP, two from the Rajasthan BJP and one from the Gujarat BJP. Also included in that list of 10 MPs are two Shiv Sena MPs, two from the JD U and 1 from the BJD.
Trust me, N-deal good: Manmohan
The trust vote debate began with the Prime Minister introducing a one-line motion seeking support of the Lok Sabha for his Government—after entering the house flashing a V sign.
Initiating the debate, Singh said the trust vote was "fully avoidable" because he had promised to return to Parliament before making the nuclear deal operational. "I have repeatedly assured all, including the Left parties, that I myself would come to the guidance of parliament before operationalising the nuclear deal, if we were allowed to go to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to finalise the India-specific safeguards agreement)," he said.
In a speech that aides said he himself drafted after coming to Parliament around 10.30 a.m., Singh said he regretted that the Government had to seek a trust vote at a time its attention was focussed on controlling soaring food prices.
And, in an apparent dig at CPI-M leader Karat, Manmohan Singh praised the "sagacity, wisdom and visionary leadership" of CPI-M veterans Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet who he said were the architects of the 2004 decision to form a UPA-Left coalition Government.
Pranab defends Govt of growth
External Affairs Minister Mukherjee, in his speech later, said the nuclear deal would bring an end to the nuclear apartheid and isolation that India had been subjected to for 30 years.
"It will open the door and end 30 years isolation of nuclear technology," Mukherjee said while participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha, defending the nuclear deal as well as the trust vote that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government sought from the house. The voting on the trust vote will take place Tuesday.
Building his case for the nuclear deal, the minister said: "Some will even use the word apartheid and not only isolation. But the deal will open the door to nuclear technology."
Mukherjee argued that the Government had to get the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved as well as get the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) to change its existing guidelines to allow commerce on civil nuclear energy between its 45-members and India.
"I don't remember any foreign policy issue that has ever been so intensely or exhaustively debated in parliament as the civil nuclear deal," Mukherjee said.
"It (the deal) is our passport to the international community. If you have a passport only then you can apply for a visa and enter another country. This nuclear deal is like our passport. We can now apply for the visa and go to other countries," Mukherjee said, while trying to explain the benefits of signing the deal."
“We have 276 MPs to back the deal—the UPA has the numbers to win.” The Minister asked the Opposition to explain if the nuclear deal was worth an issue to bring down the Government which has given 9 per cent growth
As the numbers game intensified, Mukherjee said in his "simple arithmetic", UPA's combined strength of 237 with Samajwadi party's 39 added up to 276. With the Lok Sabha having an effective strength of 541, the ruling coalition enjoyed a simple majority, he said.
Govt is in ICU, says Advani
Earlier, L K Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, pledged to renegotiate the nuclear deal if his party came to power.
In his hour-long speech in which he covered a range of issues, including internal security and the price rise, Advani said he was neither against nuclear energy nor against a "strategic relationship" with the US. He added that the BJP had no objections to strategic ties with the US, Japan or Russia.
"We are not at all opposed (to) a relationship with America. (But) irrespective of how powerful the country, we would not like India to be a party to an agreement which is unequal," he said. He stated that the India-US nuclear deal makes India a "subservient partner".
Advani said it was neither the opposition BJP nor the Left parties that were responsible for the present crisis but the UPA itself.
"This situation has been brought by the UPA Government itself. We are here to defeat the Government on the floor of this house not to destabilise it. There has never been a session like this before. It's for the first time that a discussion is taking place whether a minority Government should stay or not," said Advani, the BJP's prime minister-in-waiting, addressing the Lok Sabha in English.
He said the UPA Government failed on all fronts, especially for the "aam aadmi" and farmers, with inflation becoming wayward.
"The UPA Government has been reduced to a patient in an ICU. The Government was sworn in on May 22, 2004. Four years and two months later, it is facing the likelihood of being voted out," the BJP leader said.
Lashing out at the Prime Minister, Advani said: "Without the Congress president's (Sonia Gandhi) approval, you will not take a single step."
The BJP leader said he had never seen a Government so paralysed.
(With inputs from IANS and PTI)
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