NEW DELHI: A confident Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday pledged to win the trust vote in Parliament “100 percent,” as the ruling coalition and the opposition clashed, at times acrimoniously, on the first day of a two-day debate over the contentious Indo-US nuclear deal.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee won praise from a visibly pleased Singh after he took on critics of the nuclear deal, which at one time threatened to topple the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Amid reports that the UPA and the disparate opposition were almost evenly poised in the 545-seat house, UPA sources said they were banking on absenteeism by at least 10 MPs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led grouping to score an easy win today. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has declared she will not vote.
In a full house, one needs 272 MPs to win the Parliament vote. The lower house’s effective strength is 542, with two seats vacant and one member barred from voting.
Singh, who entered the house after flashing a “V” sign, said at recess yesterday: “I am confident of winning the trust vote. Pranab’s speech was excellent. Pranab presented the case in an excellent way. I don’t know what the opposition can say now. We are 100 percent sure that we are going to win.”
Singh’s claim of victory was the most positive sign from the UPA stable after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati dramatically rallied the opposition against the nuclear deal Sunday, forcing many to believe by night that the result could go any way. The fears still persist.
The debate was necessitated after the four Left parties withdrew support to the government, reducing it to a minority. Congress President Sonia Gandhi sat through the debate, listening attentively. She appeared pleased by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Praful Patel, who late in the evening denounced the Left for triggering instability.
Initiating the debate in the morning, Singh said the trust vote was “fully avoidable” because he had promised to return to Parliament before operationalizing the nuclear deal.
“I have repeatedly assured all, including the Left parties, that I myself would come to the guidance of Parliament before operationalizng the nuclear deal, if we were allowed to go to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to finalize the India-specific safeguards agreement),” he said.
The prime minister said he regretted that the government had to seek a trust vote at a time its attention was focused on controlling soaring food prices.
And in a clear dig at Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, 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.
Speaking later, Mukherjee said, “It 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.”
Earlier, BJP leader L.K. Advani vowed to renegotiate the nuclear deal if his party came to power.
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.
