NEW DELHI: A lively verbal duel between VP Singh and his predecessor, Rajiv Gandhi, marked the five hour debate in the Lok Sabha as it met last week to endorse confidence in Singh’s minority National Front government three weeks after it assumed office. Singh won the debate and the vote. Gandhi’s Congress Party, although present in the House, abstained from voting rather than record the ignominy of defeat. Singh proved that his was a ‘minority government with majority support” when more than 280 hands went up in his support, The Speaker, Rabi Ray, called for voting on the confidence motion moved by Singh. There were no dissensions, with the Congress Party and its allies, the AIDMK the National Conference from Jammu and Kashmir, the Kerala Congress and the Muslim League, not registering their votes.

The House has $25 members, including the Speaker, and the support of 263 was required to prove a majority.

The parties that supported the confidence motion included the 86 members of the BJP, 52 of the leftists and parties like the Akali Dal (Mann group), Jharkhand Mukti Morcha of Bihar, Shiv Sena of Maharashtra and Maharashtrawadi Gomanaktak of Goa.

“The question is not whether the prime minister changes, or the minister changes; the question is whether those that live in huts, their lives change or not,” Singh said to a thumping of desks by his Front members and supporters.

Singh was challenged twice in the beginning of his speech by Gandhi after having sought bipartisan support for his government in tackling some of the country’s burning problems, like Punjab and Kashmir.

While accepting Singh’s invitation to seek a joint solution to these problems, Gandhi wanted to know the new government’s stand ‘on secession in the two states; why the government had shied from arresting those who had called for a separate Sikh state of Khalistan, Or not spoken out against secessionist resolutions, and what the government was doing to prevent separatists from harboring again in the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

 

Article extracted from this publication >>  December 29, 1989