Trust vote notice today to make PM speak

NEW DELHI: Not being successful so far in forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak in Parliament on the Manipur situation, the opposition coalition, INDIA, is planning to force a debate by moving a notice for no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

The draft of the notice has already been drawn up and the process of getting the necessary 50 signatures of MPs is on. The Congress has also issued a whip to its Lok Sabha members to be present in its parliamentary office by 10.30 am “to discuss some important issues”.

“We discussed (at a meeting of the coalition constituents on Tuesday morning) that if we move a notice of no-confidence motion with 50 MP signatures, the PM will have to speak. If he still doesn’t speak, it will send a clear message that he is running away. It is a matter of perception. We are working on it now and will make sure we submit it before 10 am tomorrow,” said a senior leader, adding that the strategy to corner the government would continue in the Rajya Sabha, too.

This is reminiscent of the first no-confidence motion against the Modi government on July 20, 2018, which the ruling alliance won comfortably with the support of 325 MPs and opposed by only 126 members.

However, as evident as the outcome was, the debate gave the Opposition an opportunity to attack the government on a range of issues, including farm distress, slow economic growth, and rising lynching cases.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties are likely to send a delegation of MPs to Manipur over the coming weekend, with one MP from each party joining it. ↔ More on P7