India: a trust vote, and a nuclear deal

It’s not time yet, for the ruling party to gloat over their sensational yet marginal victory over the ‘Indo –US Nuclear Deal Issue’ which has long haunted their very existence. But they have emerged as the winners nonetheless. Lok Sabha TV drew eyeballs off the internet to engage many Indians and gave news stations a run for their money.

‘It’s my trust vote and I’ll shout if I want’ – Mahima Kaul titles her post at her blog ‘The life and times’ , introducing us to the scene at the lower house in the Parliament of India. She writes:

They came from everywhere; wheelchairs and stretchers – jail. And the anticipation of drama delivered! From the moment a crore of rupees was placed in the House by three BJP MPs – everything changed. Read on to see how the BJP's staged drama did not hold a trust vote down.

Phoenix recaps the political setup on his blog ‘Public diary…” , under the post, ‘The Great Indian Drama: What's the big DEAL about?’

The Left withdrew support as the UPA refused to back out of the 1-2-3 agreement with the US and thus began the numbers game…. If anything, Left leaving was slightly relieving as it brought hopes that maybe, if the Govt survived, some reforms would go ahead without the political compulsions that Left's persistent threats gave rise to. Afterall, the last four years India has hardly seen an Opposition, with the NDA mostly asleep, and the Govt had to keep fighting tooth n nail within itself thanks to the communist parties.
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When the political scene heated up with BJP finally seeming to wake up a little…

There was money up for grabs just to vote against the N-deal. And Nita tells you why, in her post – ‘Between the horse traders and traitors who is left’ on her blog, ‘A wide angle view of India’ .

There is so much corruption amongst politicians that some of our MP’s make petty money (Rs 30,000/- and above) from just raising questions in parliament and the BJP has such MP’s too.
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The fact is that India is number one when it comes to money in Swiss bank accounts and we have no way of knowing who doesn’t have an account there. While people from all walks of life probably have accounts there, I am sure our politicians lead the pack. People who are there to make our country prosper are looting it!!

Also giving us estimates on the total amount India is said to have in the Swiss banks, “India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world COMBINED.” But she is disgusted:

As for the live proceedings of the Nuclear Deal Debate in the Lok Sabha on television (just before the Trust vote) that reality show should have got an “A” certificate. If children see this how do you think they will behave in class…! But this time there was no violence…throwing of chairs and pushing and shoving, all of which I have seen on live TV in parliament. I guess we should be grateful.

In conclusion to it all, Yossarin has few things to tell the Prime minister of India, against the speech Manmohan Singh was said to have had ready, but did not deliver. Yossarin writes in the blog ‘Offstumped’ in the post, ‘Manmohan Confidence Vote - A Pyrrhic Victory’ :

You were right to pursue the strategic intent of getting India out of the nuclear winter it has been in. But sir you did not convince any political formation to express confidence on the merits of your record. You did not convince a significant number of individual members cutting across party lines to express confidence on the voice of their conscience. Rooted in questionable abstentions this is a pyrrhic victory and it is beginning of the end of your Ultimate Perverse Alliance that saw you accidentally occupy this august office.

You can find the Prime Minister’s speech here . Who are the real winners? – the question is answered here . Neha, our South Asian Blogsphere Editor for GVO, comments here .

The following video which is from a major TV news channel, shows the chaos in the Parliament when some of the members alleged bribery and started waving big piles of cash around.

Reproduced with permission from Voices Without Votes under the terms of the creative commons license.