New Delhi - India's parliament is to convene in a special
session from July 21 as the ruling coalition aims to prove it
continues to hold a majority after left-wing parties withdrew their
support in protest of a civilian nuclear deal with the United States,
news reports said Friday.
India's Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs made the
decision at a meeting in New Delhi, the PTI news agency reported,
quoting political sources.
The special session is to convene July 21 and a vote on a
confidence motion on the coalition was expected the next day, the
report said.
A spokesman for the prime minister's office said, however, that a
final decision on the special session was to be taken later Friday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Pratibha Patil
Thursday to inform her that the Congress Party-led United Progressive
Alliance was seeking the vote and wanted it to occur as soon as
possible.
A day earlier, four left-wing parties with 59 members in
parliament broke their ties with the ruling coalition and demanded a
confidence vote, saying the coalition was reduced to a minority
government.
The communists, who described the nuclear deal as a 'sell-out' of
India's strategic sovereignty, decided to quit the coalition after
Singh met US President George W Bush on the sidelines of the Group of
Eight summit of major world economies in Japan and discussed progress
on the deal.
The India-US nuclear agreement would allow the United States to
trade fissile materials and technology with India, ending a
three-decade ban. India would in return open its civilian reactors to
international inspections.
At a meeting of the coalition partners in Delhi earlier on Friday,
UPA chairwoman Sonia Gandhi expressed confidence that the government
will pass the floor test.
'I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority and work to
fulfil our remaining agenda,' Gandhi told the meeting.
Congress party politicians said the UPA, with new-found support
from its former rival Samajwadi (Socialist) Party, has more than 272
members in the 543-member Indian parliament, that is required to pass
the floor test and prove a majority.
But with two of the 39 SP members of parliament saying they would
defy party discipline, the UPA government would have 263 votes - nine
short of 272, and the UPA whips are desperately courting members of
smaller regional parties to gain the numbers.
The Singh government, which came to power in 2004, concludes its
five-year term in May 2009 but a defeat for the government in the
floor test could mean early polls, possibly by winter.
It would also spell the death of the nuclear deal and trigger
political uncertainty as the country faces slower economic growth
rates and an unprecedented double-digit inflation.
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