The Narendra Modi government comfortably defeated the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on Friday. But if the debate was a trailer of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a united Opposition, it ended in a stalemate.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi won the battle of optics in the afternoon when he surprised the Prime Minister with a hug, which Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan termed “drama”. The evening belonged to Modi as he delivered a 100-minute speech, that had just about enough to keep his party’s core supporters enthused.

The no-confidence motion was defeated with 325 votes in favour of the government and 126 against, suggesting the BJP managed to secure the support of not just its allies but also some of the fence-sitters.

In his speech, Modi accused the Congress of conspiring to incite instability in the country by supporting a pointless no-confidence motion, and suggested that the result of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was a foregone conclusion as he advised his opponents to try their luck with another no-confidence motion in 2024.

The Congress chief delivered a stinging speech that riled BJP members, and concluded it by walking across the well of the House to startle the PM with a hug. Modi said he was surprised when the Congress president came over to his seat. 

The PM said Gandhi demanded he leave the prime ministerial chair, and wondered why the Congress leader was in such a hurry. He also ridiculed him for winking at a party colleague after the hug. The Opposition took heart that it could achieve its objectives with its MPs raising a host of issues, accusing the government of failures on several fronts and demanding answers.

After the Telugu Desam Party’s K Srinivas moved the no-confidence motion shortly after 11 am, his party’s Jayadev Galla initiated the discussion. The BJP was jolted early in the morning when ally Shiv Sena’s 18 MPs absented themselves from the House. Its former ally Raju Shetty of the Swabhimani Pakhsa also spoke against the government.

The Biju Janata Dal, dictated by the compulsions of Odisha politics, staged a walkout at the start of the debate to frustrate the Opposition’s hope that the Naveen Patnaik-led party might vote against the government. The AIADMK supported the government.

Source: Business Standard

-Agencies