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NEW DELHI: India’s parliament on Tuesday was to hold a
make-or-break confidence vote that could bring down the government,
lead to early elections and end a controversial nuclear energy deal
with the US.
The projections by Indian media showed the
Congress-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh managing to
secure a narrow lead over left-wingers and Hindu nationalists who
are fiercely opposed to the pact.
Singh needs a simple majority to survive and see
through the last year of his mandate. If he fails, the world’s
largest democracy will be headed into early elections, most likely
after the monsoon season ends in late September.
India’s NDTV channel said the government had
the support of 272 MPs, with 264 against, three to abstain and two
undecided. The Times Now news channel said 273 deputies would back
the government, with 266 opposed and two to abstain.
The CNN-IBN channel projected a similarly slim
margin of support for Singh, who has been lobbying hard for weeks to
win over smaller regional parties and fence-sitting, independent
lawmakers.
Voting is expected to take place any time after
6 p.m. (2 a.m. today in Manila), officials said.
The vote was triggered after a bloc of left-wing
and communist parties pulled their support for Singh in protest over
the deal with Washington designed to bring India into the global
loop of nuclear commerce after decades of isolation.
The deal allows India, which has nuclear weapons
and refuses to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to be
treated as a special case on condition it separates its civil and
military programs and allows some UN inspections.
Government officials gave an impassioned defense
of the deal during Monday’s parliamentary debate, arguing that the
country’s 1.1 billion people badly need alternative sources of
energy to avert an impending fuel crunch.
“The problem of energy security reflects
itself among all Indians. Energy is responsible for allowing us to
grow at nine percent and the growth allows us to help our poor,”
argued Rahul Gandhi, the son of India’s ruling Congress party
chief Sonia.
“If we do not secure energy supplies, growth
will stop and we will not be able to fight poverty,” the
38-year-old scion of India’s powerful Nehru-Gandhi dynasty told
the Lok Sabha, or lower house.
India’s power stations cannot keep up with
demand, coal is running out, and power cuts are frequent—not the
recipe for continued strong growth.
But left-wingers and the main opposition Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) say the deal ties
traditionally neutral India too closely with the United States, and
would compromise the country’s nuclear weapons program.
They are equally confident they can win and
bring down the government.
The race has been so tight that the government
has let MPs serving jail terms out of prison to vote.
The opposition has also paid for special planes
to bring in lawmakers who were in hospital.
-- AFP
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