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Trust vote at 1200 hours on Saturday

The Lok Sabha today took up a motion moved by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seeking confidence in the Union council of ministers as directed by President K R Narayanan following the withdrawal of support by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

The vote will be taken up at 1200 hours and will be preceded at 1100 hours by the prime minister's reply.

Vajpayee, who spoke briefly after moving the motion, said he would prefer to listen to the members at this stage and promised a detailed reply at the end.

He questioned the strategy of the newly combined Opposition parties as its sole objective was removing his government without any definite plan for formation of an alternate set-up.

Initiating the debate, leader of the Opposition Sharad Pawar welcomed AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha's decision to withdraw support to the government. The step, according to Pawar, was ''in tune with'' the ''people's disenchantment'' with the 13-month-old Vajpayee government.

He said the Opposition would ''unitedly get a new government for the 21st century'' soon after the BJP-led government was voted out on Saturday. ''One hour after the government's fall, we will decide on the new set-up'', Pawar assured the House.

The government had failed to do anything concrete to ameliorate the problems of poverty and unemployment. Instead, it created new issues on defence, foreign affairs and economic front, he added.

Pawar said the series of attacks against the Christian community ''endorsed by the home minister'' were a blot on the country and its standing in the comity of nations.

It was decided at a meeting this morning that Lok Sabha Speaker G M C Balayogi held with representatives of all political parties at Parliament house that today and tomorrow, the House will sit till 1800 hours to enable members to speak on the motion.

Vajpayee asserted that the numbers are in his favour. Asked if his government was in a position to prove its majority, he said, "Yes,we are confident of securing a majority. My party is having talks with other parties."

When asked to identify the parties, he refused, saying "There is no need to give out the names.''

The prime minister was replying to questions from newspersons in the parliamentary annexe at the end of a 45-minute meeting of the BJP parliamentary party and its allies.

Asked why he chose to move a confidence vote today itself, when the President had not stipulated any time frame, Vajpayee said, "We don't want to delay because we are confident."

Almost all the BJP's allies including Naveen Patnaik of the Biju Janata Dal and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress were present at the meeting.

The Bahujan Samaj Party today announced it has decided its course of action during the confidence vote, but chose to remain secretive about its decision. BSP leader Mayawati, just before entering the Lok Sabha, told neswspersons that the party's action would be ''totally in tune with the interests of the Bahujan Samaj.''

She, however, favoured a mid-term poll in the current fluid political situation, saying frequent polls suited the interests of the downtrodden.

The Rajya Sabha was adjourned till Monday soon after it met this morning following requests from members that they would like to witness the debate on the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha.

UNI

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