No Confidence Motion News: The numbers in Lok Sabha & opposition’s ‘battle of perception’ against PM Modi | India News – Times of India
The motion, moved by Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, was allowed by Speaker Birla after a head count of over 50 MPs as required under the rules.
The government has said that it’s ready to discuss the Manipur issue in the House. However, the opposition alliance, known as INDIA, insists that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should himself address the issue in Parliament.
The numbers
In Lok Sabha, the motion is bound to fail the numbers test since the Modi government enjoys a clear majority.
The majority mark in the lower house is at 272. The PM Modi-led NDA has 332 members in the lower house. The BJP alone has 301 members.
On other hand, the opposition alliance, including Congress, has about 141 members.
The neutral parties like KCR’s BRS, YS Jagan Reddy’s YSRCP and Naveen Patnaik’s BJD have combined strength of 41.
The remaining few seats are divided between other unallied parties as well as Independents.
This means that if it comes to the vote, the motion can be easily defeated by the ruling BJP.
However, despite knowing the fate of the no-confidence motion, the opposition parties argue that they will win the “battle of perception” by cornering the government on the Manipur issue during the debate.
They contend that it is also a strategy to make the Prime Minister speak in Parliament on the crucial matter even as the government has been insisting that Union home minister Amit Shah will reply to the debate on the Manipur situation.
Historically too, such motions have seldom led to the toppling of governments.
Here’s a brief understanding about the no-confidence motion …
What is a no-confidence motion?
A no-confidence motion is a formal process in which a legislature expresses its lack of confidence in the government. In India, the no-confidence motion can be moved only in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament.
To move a no-confidence motion, a member of the Lok Sabha must give a written notice of the motion which must be signed by at least 50 members of the House.
Once the notice is received, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha will decide whether to admit the motion for discussion. If the motion is admitted, it will be debated in the House and a vote will be taken. If the government loses the vote, it will be forced to resign.
Previous no-confidence motions
Since independence, as many as 27 no-confidence motions have been moved in the Lok Sabha.
The first no-confidence motion was moved against Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1963. PM Indira Gandhi faced the most no-confidence motions (15), followed by Lal Bahadur Shastri and PV Narasimha Rao (three each). The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government lost the no-confidence motion by a margin of one vote (269–270) in April 1999.
The most recent no-confidence motion was moved against the Narendra Modi government in 2018. The motion was defeated by a vote of 325 to 126.
Watch PM Modi’s prediction on no-confidence motion from five years ago goes viral as Oppn submits motion
