New Delhi, JUL 20 :
Terming the no-trust vote against his government a result of the opposition’s “arrogance”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday called on all parties to dismiss the move and accused the Congress of working with the mindset of ‘Modi hatao’ (remove Modi).
Responding to a day-long debate on the no-confidence motion, he said some people are indulging in “negative politics.” He also took a dig at Rahul Gandhi for asking him to stand up for a hug after walking across to his chair in the Lok Sabha, saying the Congress President appeared to be in a hurry to occupy his seat.
Only the electorate of the country can decide his fate and make him sit on his chair, Modi said, asking “what is the hurry”. Gandhi was present in the House when the Prime Minister made the statement.
Today’s no-confidence motion, the 27th in Parliamentary history, is the first to be admitted in 15 years. The last was in 2003 when the Congress party moved a no-confidence motion against prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Meanwhile, Ahead of the trust vote against the Narendra Modi-led BJP government, Congress President Rahul Gandhi attacked the Prime Minister on lack of jobs and PM Modi’s pre-poll promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh in bank accounts of poor.
Gandhi said that PM fooled the masses when he said that 2 crore jobs will be created every year while only 4 lakh jobs have been created so far. Taking on the BJP-led government for not bringing in petrol and diesel under the GST, Gandhi said, “GST was brought by the Congress party. You had opposed GST as Gujarat CM.” He added that small businesses have been hit by this tax regime.
The Congress President also attacked Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for falsely claiming that there was a secrecy pact between India and France. “Defence Minister said that she will disclose the price of Rafale in public. Then she backtracked claiming that India and France have a secrecy pact.
No-Confidence Motion….
I then spoke to French President who said there is no such pact between India and France,” Gandhi said.
PM Modi works only for 10-20 businessmen and not for the common man, Gandhi said. Gandhi claimed that PM must explain why Rafale offset contract was taken away from state-run HAL and given to a private company. “A businessmen who has not built a single airplane in his life and has a debt of Rs 35,000 crore was given the Rafale deal because of his relationship with PM.”
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has asked its MPs to abstain from the no-confidence motion. “It’s a decision of our party president. We are technically with the NDA,” Sanjay Raut said. “Our party MPs won’t go to Parliament, we will stay neutral,” he said.
In a House of 534 MPs, the National Democratic Alliance has 313 members – 274 (including the Speaker) of BJP, 18 of Shiv Sena, six of Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP and four from Shiromani Akali Dal. The majority mark in the House is 268. There are 11 vacancies. The stated strength of the Opposition is 222, including 63 of the Congress-led UPA, 37 of AIADMK, 34 of TMC, 20 BJD, 16 TDP and 11 TRS.
