No-trust motion against Mayawati fails

The opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion against the ten-month-old Bahujan Samaj Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government in Uttar Pradesh was declared defeated on Wednesday amidst pandemonium.

In an unprecedented situation, the motion, put forward by the united opposition late on Tuesday night and tabled in the assembly on Wednesday, was defeated without a vote or a debate.

No one knew when the motion was put to vote. But the presiding officer, Suresh Chandra Srivastava, declared at about 1945 IST that the motion had been defeated by a voice vote and adjourned the house sine die.

The no-trust motion was initiated after the Samajwadi Party, the primary opposition party in the state, accused Chief Minister Mayawati of corrupt practices and released video recordings showing her demanding a cut from the constituency development fund of her party's MPs and MLAs.

Most of the uproar during the day's proceedings was caused by the ruling coalition itself. Members of the opposition, who normally disrupt the house, were reduced to storming the well of the house and throwing files and paperweights at the speaker's podium.

Each time the chair directed Leader of the Opposition Azam Khan to speak, he was obstructed by members of the ruling coalition, who created an uproar.

Trouble was sparked soon after the house met at 1100 IST by a BSP member accusing Khan of making insulting gestures at his long beard. The member termed this an insult to his Islamic religion.

Even as Khan tried to clarify that he had made no such gesture, all the BSP members began raising angry slogans and demanding an apology from him.

The house was adjourned nearly a dozen times. Each time the presiding officer used the interludes to read out the serialised agenda and declare it passed by a voice vote.

In this manner, Srivastava disposed of all important business before the house. Both the vote-on-account and a supplementary budget were declared passed, as was the motion of thanks to the governor's address, which was originally scheduled to be taken up on March 7.

When the business advisory committee of the house decided to take up the no-trust motion on Wednesday itself, even the opposition realised what lay in store.

Mayawati, who had attended the assembly for barely 10 minutes earlier in the day, reappeared only after the no-confidence motion had been declared defeated. "We are in a comfortable majority and the opposition does not have the desired strength to bring down the government," she told reporters later.

The opposition criticised not just the chief minister and the presiding officer, but also Speaker Keshri Nath Tripathi who chose to stay away from most of the day's proceedings.

The entire band of legislators belonging to the Samajwadi Party, Congress, Rashtriya Krantikari Party and other smaller opposition groups also began an indefinite dharna (sit-in) inside the house to protest against what they called a 'farce orchestrated by the chair'.