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22nd July, 2008
NEW DELHI: The future of India’s coalition government and a controversial nuclear deal with the United States were hanging in the balance Monday as parliament opened debate ahead of a key confidence vote.
The Indian government will collapse and early elections will be called if the coalition of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh loses a vote on Tuesday. Experts say the outcome is too close to call.
Singh stirred up anger among his left-wing and communist allies by pushing ahead a nuclear accord with the United States which his government insists is essential to meet the energy needs of India’s fast-growing economy.
Left-wingers, who triggered the vote by withdrawing their support, say the deal ties traditionally non-aligned India too closely with the United States, and would compromise the country’s nuclear weapons programme.
After days of trying to woo even tiny, fence-sitting parties, Singh voiced confidence that his government would survive and see through its last year in office.
“I would like to assure this house… that every single decision, every policy initiative we have taken was taken in fullest confidence that we are doing so in the best interests of our people,” Singh told the Lok Sabha, or parliament.
“I have no doubt that the people of India will reaffirm their confidence in us.”
The government needs a simple majority of votes, but opposition parties—including the left and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—are equally confident they can push the world’s largest democracy into early polls.
If the government loses the vote, elections must be held within six months. Experts say they would likely take place once the monsoon season ends in late September.
The race is so tight, and the stakes so high, that the government has let six MPs serving jail terms out to vote. Meanwhile the opposition has paid for charter flights to bring in ailing lawmakers, including one who has had heart bypass surgery, politicians said.
“The government is today like a patient in an intensive care unit. The first question naturally asked is, ‘is he going to survive or not?’” BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani said as the marathon debate opened.
The communists and BJP are also trying to widen the terms of the debate.
They have been speaking out against rising food and fuel prices—inflation is currently around 12 percent—and arguing that hundreds of millions of poor have been left behind by India’s economic boom.
But the core issue is the nuclear deal—which spans India’s energy security as well as its place in the world.
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