No confidence motion and the PM’s silence

The rules for a no confidence motion that is brought before the House are clear : You cannot stay in power a moment longer than you enjoy majority and that is the essence of the Indian democracy.

All the members of the House have the constitutional right to move a no confidence vote against an incumbent government if they genuinely feel that some issues need to be raised and the government must be called to account, despite knowing fairly well that the ruling party had the numbers.

Is India becoming a banana republic under BJP?

MPs in the favour of the motion on being ignored day after day by the Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, came up with innovative ways to be seen despite the sloganeering by AIADMK leaders in the Well. They stood up with placards numbered from one to 80, to show their support for the motion. On other days, they stood up with their hands raised. Yet, the Speaker was unable to count the heads, we were told.

The Lok Sabha did not take up a no confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government for more than three weeks. And the petty reason was that the house is not in order, hence will be adjourned. This happened day after day, signalling an utter disrespect for democratic dissent.

This is at a time when in neighbouring Sri Lanka, the parliament took up a similar motion against the ruling government and disposed it.

Further and further away from being a vibrant democracy

The prime minister is also the leader of the Lok Sabha and it his duty to hold a genuine dialogue to resolve any disagreements and ensure that the House functions normally. This did not happen.

Instead the talk in opposition circles is that the prime minister wanted to avoid any discussion on the Nirav Modi scam, the Dalits issue, the CBSE leak and the host of problems that faced his government.

All this goes to show that the BJP under the stewardship of Modi and Amit Shah is interested only in winning elections by hook or by crook but not in genuine democracy.