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Rabri wins confidence vote comfortably

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

Amidst slogan-shouting by National Democratic Alliance legislators against Speaker Sadanand Singh, the Rabri Devi government won the confidence of the Bihar assembly by 166 votes to four.

The Opposition boycotted the vote in protest against the procedure adopted by the speaker. Hurling the choicest abuses at Singh, members raised slogans like 'Loktantra ka hathyara, hai hai; Sarkar ki dalali nahin chalegi' and 'Jogi ka bhogi, murdabad, murdabad'.

About a dozen legislators, including women, jumped on the writers' table to register their protest at the division of votes. Bhagirathi Devi of the Bharatiya Janata Party offered her bangles to Speaker Singh while Dilip Verma, also of the BJP, lay on the floor of the House. Other NDA members then lifted him like a corpse and laid him on the writers' table to signify the death of democracy.

The Opposition uproar continued for a full half-hour, until the treasury benches exercised their vote in an adjacent room. Old-timers said this was the first time a speaker had come under such sharp attack from the Opposition.

Later, Rashtriya Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav said the Opposition did not want a head count. "They came prepared to not let voting take place, but they failed," he told reporters. He called it a victory of the poor and of secular forces.

Earlier, during the two-hour debate, the RJD and NDA freely traded charges. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ramchandra Purbey spoke on behalf of the chief minister moments after she tabled the motion of confidence. Leader of the Opposition Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP wondered why Laloo Yadav was so opposed to the Central Bureau of Investigation when his own party's governments had referred several cases to it.

"Is Bihar your jagir that you will not let the CBI enter the state?" he asked.

Yadav targeted Governor Vinod Pande for inviting Nitish Kumar to form the government and said the vote today would prove how wrong he had been. He added that it was the first time Parliament was discussing a governor's conduct under Rule 184.

While Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist, member Mahindra Prasad Singh said the six MLAs of his party would abstain from voting, CPI leader Rajendra Rajan said his party would oppose the RJD-led government just as it had opposed Nitish Kumar.

Congressman Vijay Shankar Dubey said that given the fractured verdict, an alliance with the secular forces was the best bet.

Replying to the debate, Purbey highlighted the achievements of the 10-year rule of the RJD. He noted that while the per capita deposit rate in Bihar was Rs 3,657, which is better than in bigger states like Andhra Pradesh (Rs 3,538), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 3,021) and Rajasthan (Rs 2,768), the investment of commercial banks was much below the level in these states.

He said that the sale of tractors had gone up 250 per cent since 1990 and the state had not only become self-sufficient in food but also exports grains to West Bengal, Bangladesh and the Northeastern states. Yet, he said, the Centre ignores it.

Though the speeches were marred by interruptions, the real drama began at the time of voting. The Opposition refused to accept the speaker's ruling on a voice vote, which went in favour of the confidence motion. Then Singh ordered a division of votes, which was also vociferously opposed.

The NDA apparently did not want a head count as its strength had gone down considerably since Kumar's resignation. While Rabri Devi had submitted a list of 162 MLAs on March 10, four more have joined her -- two members of the United Democratic Gomantak Party and two independents.

In a house with an effective strength of 320 -- two absconding members supporting the NDA have not yet taken oath, and Laloo Yadav and Narendra Singh have given up one seat each -- the result clearly shows that on March 3, the RJD-led combination was ahead of the NDA, which today has just 140 members. While four MLAs of the CPI opposed the confidence motion and the six CPI-ML members abstained, the four undertrial independents who had earlier supported Nitish Kumar did not participate.

Sadanand Singh later justified his decision on the division, stating that he had merely adopted a time-tested procedure. He denied the charge of bias. But Modi said the method used was unconstitutional and open to bungling as 210 MLAs are first-timers.

Former chief minister Nitish Kumar too questioned the manner in which the speaker conducted the election. He said the small margin indicated that Rabri Devi would not last long.

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