A day before it faces an Opposition-sponsored cut motion on the demands for grants, a confident United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government today claimed it had a “comfortable majority” in the Lok Sabha.
“We are confident of sailing through the cut motion proposals. The Opposition is divided and there is no rift in the UPA,” Finance Minister and Leader of the Lok Sabha, Pranab Mukherjee, told Business Standard.
A cut motion has the same effect as a vote of budgetary confidence in the government.
Successful behind-the-scene talks with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will ensure the UPA will not have a wafer- thin majority during the division on cut motions. The BSP has 21 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Indicating that the party was not in the Opposition bandwagon, BSP leader in the Rajya Sabha, Satish Chandra Mishra, said: “We have not taken any decision yet. We will meet on Tuesday morning to take a call.”
Apart from the BSP, many government managers were confident that the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, too, will finally not vote against the government. The two parties have a combined strength of 25 MPs in the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of Parliament.
A CPI(M) politburo member of the Rajya Sabha said: “They (SP and RJD) will be with us on our protests against price rise. But, it’s difficult to say if they will support the cut motions.”
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“Netaji (Mulayam Sigh Yadav) has told us that the party will take its decision on Tuesday morning,” Dharmendra Yadav, a Samajwadi Party MP, said.
Till Monday evening, SP and RJD had not pushed any cut motion from their side. The CPI(M), CPI, BJP and the BJD have submitted cut motions on the finance ministry against the price rise of fertiliser and fuel products. The CPI(M) has moved five cut motions of reduction of Re 1 in demand numbers 72, 32, 7, 42 and 80 in the Demand for Grants of Finance Ministry on issues like “rise in price of essential commodities”, “rise in urea price” and disapproval of policy regarding increase in petroleum and diesel prices”.
CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharya has also moved a motion for annulment of government’s notification on central excise duty hike on petroleum and diesel.
While the CPI(M), CPI, BJP and the BJD have issued a whip to ensure the presence of their MPs, the SP and RJD that vowed till last week to vote against the government on the cut motions have not issued any whip.
Adding to the comfort of the UPA government, JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda has already informed his opposition camp partners that he may not be able to come to Delhi on April 27, as he needs to arrange a strike in his state, Karnataka.
Home minister rejects govt hand in wiretap
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has refuted all charges of espionage on political adversaries, but has promised further inquiries into the matter.
In his response to the charges of phone tapping, he said: “I wish to state categorically that no telephone tapping or eavesdropping on political leaders was authorised by the previous UPA government, nor has the present government authorised any such activity.”
Citing the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) as a technical organisation of the government, set up at the advice of the recommendations of “a group of ministers” on 15 April 2004, Chidambaram said in Parliament: “Nothing has been found in the records of NTRO or elsewhere to substantiate the allegations.”