Indian government to face parliamentary trust vote (1st Lead)

Jul 11, 2008, 11:28 GMT

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.