India's parties trying hard to win trust vote

New Delhi: India's ruling coalition is all set to sail through the crucial trust vote on Tuesday.

On paper, it continues to be a close call, with those likely to vote for the government remaining two seats short of the halfway mark and the opposition three short of the number needed to bring down the government.

However, the ruling coalition have put in place Plan B to bring down the halfway mark, by engineering abstentions after their limited success in being able to persuade opposition MPs to defect.

In a symbolic gesture, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flashed the victory sign while entering parliament, while Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee sounded extremely confident.

He asked the media to wait until the buttons are pressed on the electronic voting machine, indicating they had managed the requisite numbers to survive.

An indication of things to come had become visible on Sunday, when six lawmakers of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party failed to turn up at the dinner organised for all members of the National Democratic Alliance.

While the Samajwadi Party, which is out to ensure the government's survival, managed to wean away one BJP MP Brij Bushan Sharan Singh on Sunday, D.C. Srikantappa chose to resign his Chikmagalur seat, bringing down the effective strength of the BJP from 130 to 128.

Sources in the Congress now say that half a dozen BJP MPs would abstain from voting, including two each from Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan, besides one each of the Shiv Sena and the Biju Janata Dal, and two Janata Dal (United) MPs.

Mamata Banerjee, the lone Trinamool Congress lawmaker, on Monday announced she would abstain. With 11 lawmakers likely to abstain, the halfway mark would come down from 273 to 266.

With 269 lawmakers on its side, the government will sail through while the number of opposition MPs would come down from 268 to around 258.

Still busy

Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh was still busy trying to poach lawmakers of other smaller parties.

He worked through Sunday night and was busy wooing one of the three Rashtriya Lok Dal MPs to either defect or abstain while a fiery debate was on inside the Lok Sabha, much to the chagrin of the Left Front, Bahujan Samaj Party and Telugu Desham Party combine.

Interestingly, the BJP does not appear too keen to topple the government and is making no effort to bring back those who have either defected or are likely to abstain.

Leader of Opposition Lal Krishna Advani on Monday made it clear the BJP was not keen on toppling the government while adding that his party will vote against the trust motion.

"There are many reasons why we don't want the government to go at this stage. If the government goes, the ensuing Lok Sabha polls would be fought on the nuclear deal agenda, while we want to go to polls on our agenda. So after the nuke deal fire is doused, we can work on other things like inflation to divert the attention. Then downfall of the government at this stage would make the Left and [BSP chief] Mayawati rallying point of anti-Congress votes," he said.

PM not to vote

Of the eight trust votes taken in the Lok Sabha in the last 29 years, the government of the day has won six while in two cases the incumbent prime ministers simply resigned without facing the House.

Interestingly, the concept of a trust vote started only in 1979 because in all the general elections before that - from 1952 to 1977 - the mandate was so decisive that there was no need for a confidence motion.

The first time the need arose was in 1979 a split in the Janata Party forced the ignominy on Charan Singh. Realising he did not have the requisite numbers, Singh did not even face the House but opted to resign.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not have to move a confidence motion in 2004 as he was assured of majority with the outside support of the Left.

Singh will be the first PM who will not vote on a trust motion since he is not a member of the Lok Sabha but of the Upper House of parliament.

With inputs from IANS