New Delhi: Amid the ongoing parliamentary impasse, deputy leader of the Congress, Gaurav Gogoi, on Wednesday moved a no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government over the ongoing ethnic clashes in Manipur.
Both Congress and Telangana’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) had filed two separate no-confidence motions against the government in Lok Sabha. Speaker Om Birla admitted the former’s motion after MPs belonging to the Opposition alliance INDIA, including Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, DMK’s TR Baalu and NCP leader Supriya Sule, stood up for the head count and said ‘he will allot appropriate time for discussion’.
“The no-confidence motion has been accepted by the Speaker. Now it should be given overriding priority because normally, the convention is that once a no-confidence motion comes, all other businesses are suspended and that should be taken up,” said Congress MP Rajeev Shukla.
With only 13 working days of the monsoon session remaining, the Congress submitted the no-trust motion notice at 9.20 am. The Speaker can take up to 10 days to schedule the debate as per procedure.
While the BJP-led government enjoys a clear majority with 301 members in the 542-seat lower house of Parliament, this move, according to the Opposition, is aimed at highlighting the Manipur issue through the debate and pressurising the government to make the Prime Minister address the matter in Parliament.
In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge earlier wrote: “We have been urging the Prime Minister to come and speak in the Parliament but it seems that will hurt his prestige. We are committed to the people of this country and we will pay all price for it…Despite being in power for long, we know that records of the conduct of both the Ruling as well as Opposition sides are registered in the pages of history,” wrote Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Notably, a no-confidence motion was moved by YSR Congress Party against the Narendra Modi-led government in 2018 which the latter won by a thumping majority with 314 votes. In August 2003, Congress had also brought a no-confidence motion against the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government following the re-induction of defence minister George Fernandes in the Union Cabinet. The NDA had then secured 312 votes while the Opposition mopped up 186 votes.
