The Narendra Modi government yesterday defeated the no-confidence motion moved by the opposition with an overwhelming majority with the government getting 325 out of a total 451 votes. Only 126 MPs voted in favour of the motion.
The no-confidence motion was put to vote after a 12-hour heated debate which saw the government and opposition trade charges and a moment of drama when Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, after a blistering speech, walked over to hug the prime minister.
The result indicated that parties not formally part of the BJP-led ruling coalition, the NDA (National Democratic Alliance), voted in the government’s favour.
Before the motion was put to vote, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the exercise was aimed at destabilising the country.
“To create uncertainty in the country, Congress has brought this no-confidence motion by misusing constitutional provisions,” Modi said, referring to the main opposition party. “We are not here for selfish interests.”
Modi accused the Congress of creating a large mess of NPAs (non-performing asset) in Indian banks and said that from during United Progressive Alliance rule from 2008 to 2014 the “underground loot of banks” was such that the amount of NPAs increased from Rs18 lakh crore to Rs52 lakh crore.
He said the loans were given to select industrialists during the previous UPA rule.
“I want to tell you about the NPA problem. Much before internet banking, the Congress invented phone banking and this caused the NPA mess. A phone call would get loans for their cronies and the nation suffered,” Modi said.
“Our government decided that the banks should come out into the open with NPAs, and we also took some decisions that would help the country in long run.”
He said for sixty years after independence, Rs18 lakh crore was the total bank loan but between 2008 to 2014, this increased to Rs52 lakh crores.
“The underground loot of banks went on from 2009 to 2014. So long as Congress was in power, the game of looting the nation continued”.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party used the vote’s accompanying debate to challenge Modi on what he said were failed economic, defence and foreign policies.
In a speech, amid yelling by both sides of the house, he alleged the government was close to business tycoons and had failed to create enough jobs. And there was some drama too, as he walked across the chamber to hug the prime minister at the end of his address.
The vote comes at a challenging time for Modi. National and regional opposition parties have begun to organise coalition arrangements aimed at defeating Modi. It also comes as India, a net oil importer, suffers through a worsening macroeconomic outlook on the back of rising oil prices.

Rahul stands by remarks on Rafale deal
Even as France yesterday denied that Rahul Gandhi had been told by French President Emmanuel Macron that there was no secrecy pact with India on the Rafale jet deal, the Congress president stood by his remarks, saying that the clarification had been made in the presence of former prime minister Manmohan Singh and party leader Anand Sharma. “Let them deny it if they want. He (Macron) said that before me. I was there, Anand Sharma and Dr Manmohan Singh were also there,” Gandhi said. Following Gandhi’s remarks during the debate on the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha, the French government issued a statement that there was a legally binding security agreement, which also covers the agreement to purchase the Rafale fighter jets by India.