By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party Tuesday asked the Lok Sabha speaker to disqualify two of its MPs, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh flashed the victory sign as he arrived at parliament house on the morning of trust vote day.
Manmohan Singh smiled and looked confident hours before the trust vote that will decide the fate of his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Meanwhile the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday made moves to seek disqualification of at least two of its rebel MPs to send a tough signal to other fence-sitter MPs about defying the party whip and not voting against the UPA government.
The BJP wrote to speaker Somnath Chatterjee Tuesday morning seeking disqualification of its MP from Balrampur (Uttar Pradesh) Braj Bhushan Sharan Singh and another rebel MP from Gujarat, Sombhai Patel.
Manmohan Singh had flashed the victory sign on Monday as he walked into parliament for the start of the debate on his confidence motion.
However, on Tuesday morning the PM did not respond to media queries about whether the UPA was confident of winning the trust vote. He had expressed confidence on this point when coming out of parliament late Monday night.
“We are making all efforts to keep our MPs together and united and we will be successful as we have the numbers to prove the majority,” parliamentary affairs minister Vayalar Ravi told IANS at parliament house here.
The Manmohan Singh government was Tuesday pulling out all stops to get the trust of the house on the second day of the two-day special session of the Lok Sabha on the trust vote.
Senior UPA ministers had a meeting in the chamber of parliamentary affairs minister Vayalar Ravi to discuss strategies for Tuesday’s debate and work out the numbers game in the house.
Congress and BJP chief ministers reached parliament house to ensure that MPs from their states were present in the house and voted according to party whips.
The BJP leadership began its attempts to put up a united face in the Lok Sabha. The party was trying to ensure that all its MPs were present in the house throughout Tuesday.