New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) They are seriously unwell, strapped to their hospital beds and need constant medical care. But for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), their vote is crucial to topple the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in Tuesday's floor test.

So some of the MPs are being flown to New Delhi, bandage and all, and some on stretchers.

The first MP to cause worry was BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who has not been keeping well for the past few months and has also not made any public appearances.

Amid speculation that he would not be able to vote, the party sought special permission for him. Vajpayee will be casting his vote in the parliament lobby.

The next to create a flutter was 57-year-old Harishandra Chavan, an MP from Malegoan in Maharashtra. Seriously injured in an accident, Chavan has been bedridden and is immobilised. He is undergoing treatment in a Nashik hospital since June 10.

The party is planning to fly Chavan to Delhi, ignoring his doctor's advice. His family is also worried about moving the injured MP, but party leaders have assured them of all kinds of medical facilities and that moving him would not harm his condition.

That is not all. Bollywood actor-turned-politician Dharmendra has undergone a knee surgery in the US. He is recuperating in Los Angeles. When it seemed that the MP from Bikaner in Rajasthan might give the vote a miss, BJP leaders pressed the panic button.

Dharmendra has been told to rush back to India and to vote against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government. The actor has said he will consult his doctors.

Apart from Dharmendra, the other to add to the party's worries is MP from Gujarat Mahesh Kanodia. A popular singer, Kanodia recently underwent open heart surgery. Party managers are busy arranging to fly him to Delhi as well, party sources said.

To make it easier for these ailing MPs to vote, the BJP has sought permission for them to cast their vote in the parliament lobby instead of their own seats.

The Lok Sabha manual provides for the speaker to allow exceptions in case a member cannot vote from his seat. Voting slips are provided to such members and they are assisted in the procedure.

The provision was first used on Feb 26, 1999, to facilitate voting by Vijaya Raje Scindia, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vaidya Vishnu Dutt. All had medical problems.

So for now all eyes are on these four ailing BJP MPs. As in most cases, their doctors are not happy at the prospect of them being moved from their hospital beds. But the determined opposition is bent upon getting them here so as not to miss a chance of ousting the government.

Samajwadi Party MP joins BSP, says the government must go

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) Sending shockwaves in the ranks of the ruling United progressive Alliance (UPA), Samajwadi Party general secretary and spokesman Shahid Siddiqui Saturday announced he was joining the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as the nuclear deal was "against Muslims".

Siddiqui, who went to meet BSP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati here immediately after coming out of the prime minister's official residence at 7 Race Course Road, told reporters that he was "feeling suffocated in the party".

"Since last month, I was feeling suffocated in the party. And I was forced to support the deal. This deal is against the Muslims and India. This deal will make us the slave of the US and lead us to darkness," said Siddiqui, who was flanked by Mayawati.

"On this nuclear deal, the government must go. I am joining BSP because of my conscience and not because of any underhand dealing," said the Rajya Sabha MP, who also runs the Urdu daily Nai Duniya.

"I will fight elections under the leadership of 'behenji' (Mayawati)," he announced.

Mayawati also denied there was any deal behind Siddiqui's decision.

"Siddiqui has joined us on his own after seeing our stand on the nuclear deal. We welcome him," said a beaming Mayawati.

Siddiqui attended the prime minister's breakfast meeting with newspaper editors. He had gone to the G8 meet in Japan earlier this month, as a member of the media contingent accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on the insistence of party general secretary Amar Singh.

"There has been a lot of pressure from my community. The deal is not in my community's interest and certainly not India's," he said.

"Congress is as bad as BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). I was extremely perturbed for the past one month. I should have resigned much earlier. I was making a compromise and it was against my conscience. Indian Muslims are against George W. Bush.

"I don't know how many more Samajwadi Party member would join. Everybody should take the stand according to his conscience. In the name of BJP, Muslims have been exploited. We have become bonded labourers," he said.

Targeting the chief cleric of Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari, Siddiqui added: "This man has been deceiving the Muslims. He has taken them for a ride."

"Going to him is an insult to the Muslim community," he said, referring to the meeting Samajwadi party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh had with Bukhari Friday, after which Bukhari expressed his support for the deal.

Meetings, wooing continue as countdown begins for trust vote

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) With the ruling and opposition parties counting each vote ahead of Tuesday's confidence motion in parliament, both sides were holding hectic parleys in the national capital Saturday to re-confirm the loyalty of their supporters and woo the fence sitters, who now hold the key to the government's survival.

Both sides are leaving no stone unturned to ensure their victory.

While Congress president Sonia Gandhi began meeting her party MPs state wise at her 10 Janpath residence to take stock of the situation in the states, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) central committee also met to finalise its strategy for the debate on the trust motion.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has intensified its attempts to defeat the Congress-led government, is holding a dinner for its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners Saturday to ensure that its flock is intact.

Both sides continued their efforts to woo the five-member Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). Although there was speculation that the JMM leader and former coal minister Shibu Soren as also Uttar Pradesh veteran Ajit Singh would be sworn in Saturday to join the Manmohan Singh cabinet, party sources said any such move could take place only after the trust motion. Ajit Singh, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief, has three MPs in the Lok Sabha.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is camping in the national capital in an apparent move to woo the smaller parties and single-member parties to persuade them to defeat the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). She is scheduled to meet Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who will also meet Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan during the day. The TRS has announced that its three members will vote against the government.

Although there are clear differences among the three Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) MPs, party leader and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda said he would announce the JD-S stand after his scheduled meeting with Manmohan Singh Saturday. However, the JD-S leader in the Lok Sabha, M.P. Veerendra Kumar has announced that the party will vote against the trust motion.

During the CPI-M central committee meeting, the party leadership will explain to members the developments that led to the Left's decision to withdraw its legislative support to the UPA government. The apex committee is also expected to discuss the post-trust vote scenario.

The central committee is expected to discuss the action that should be taken against party MP and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, who reportedly refused to go by the party directive to step down in the wake of the CPI-M withdrawing support to the government.

When the Lok Sabha meets Monday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will move a motion seeking the confidence of the house in his government.

The Congress whips have been asked to give the names of the speakers they want in the two-day long debate. The list will be handed over to Gandhi and after she finalises the names it will be handed over to the speaker's office.

According to party sources, Gandhi may not speak, but Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is likely to take part in the discussions.

Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram are also expected to speak during the debate.

Left to decide on government committee membership after trust vote

Agartala, July 19 (IANS) The Left parties will decide after Tuesday's trust vote whether to continue their membership in various parliamentary and government committees, party sources said here Saturday. The Left has withdrawn support to the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) over the India-US civil nuclear deal.

"We will discuss whether Left MPs should be a part of parliamentary and government committees or not after Tuesday's trust vote," Khagen Das, a member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) central committee, told IANS before leaving for New Delhi to attend the committee's two day meeting.

Left party MPs are currently members of various government and parliamentary committees.

They are likely to stay on in the parliamentary committees till the end of the Lok Sabha. Parliamentary standing committees and ad-hoc committees have MPs from both the government and the opposition. There are 17 standing committees among both houses of parliament.

Lalu asks Bardhan to apologise for remark on MPs

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) Joining his friends in the Congress in attacking the Left parties, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Saturday asked Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan to prove his allegation of MPs being bought over for the July 22 trust motion or to apologise.

Terming Bardhan's remarks as "nasty", the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader, one of the strongest allies of the Congress in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), said: "Bardhanji has harmed the reputation of all parties with his comments. He has said a very nasty thing."

Bardhan had alleged that horse-trading was taking place to "purchase" MPs to vote in favour of the government and said the prevailing price of an MP was Rs.250 million.

"He should prove his allegations. Or he should apologise," Lalu Prasad told reporters after a meeting of the RJD parliamentary party at his home here.

The RJD meeting was attended by 21 of its 24 MPs. Party leaders said Sitaram Yadav, MP from Sitamarhi, was absent due to personal reasons.

"All the RJD MPs will vote for the UPA in the trust vote," Lalu Prasad said.

Two MPs - Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav (Madhepura) and Mohammed Shahabuddin (Siwan) - who are in prison will be brought to parliament after taking permission from the courts to cast their vote in the trust motion.

Exuding confidence, the railway minister said the UPA will get 291 votes in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

From PM house to Mayawati, Siddiqui says 'government should go'

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) Straight from a breakfast meeting at 7, Race Course Road Saturday, where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached out to him and called him "Shahid saab", Samajwadi Party (SP) general secretary Shahid Siddiqui drove to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's residence to declare his allegiance to her and say "this government should go".

The announcement that he was joining SP's arch-rival Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) not only shocked other editors who were invited to the breakfast meeting but has even taken the prime minister by surprise, sources close to him say.

Siddiqui was invited to the interaction in his capacity as the editor of the Urdu paper Nai Duniya, the other hat he wears in addition to the political one as Rajya Sabha member, and till Saturday, the media-savvy spokesman of the Samajwadi Party.

His name was included in the list of editors invited to the one-and-a-half hour freewheeling interaction that the prime minister had Saturday morning, during which he largely talked about his record, his vision for the country and his failed quest to get all parties on board on the touchstone India-US civil nuclear deal.

Twice during the interaction, Manmohan Singh reached out to Siddiqui, addressing him as "Shahid saab", and said if any party had a grouse about not being briefed over the nuclear deal it was "Shahid saab's (Samajwadi) party."

Siddiqui was also included in the prime minister's press party to Japan and was given pride of place in the media section, right opposite the chair occupied by the prime minister when he meets reporters on board his special flight. He was seen as a bridge between the government and the Samajwadi Party with which the Congress had entered into a political alliance to save the government and the nuclear deal.

Those who know Siddiqui say they are not completely surprised at his flip-flop.

When US President George Bush came here in March 2006, Siddiqui was in the vanguard of Muslim protests against the visit. Hours later he took off his bright red cap, that caught the TV cameras' attention during the demonstration before parliament's main gate, and drove to attend the lunch in Bush's honour.

Paswan confident government will sail through trust vote

New Delhi, July 19 (IANS) Dismissing all threats to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, central minister and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan Saturday asserted that 281 MPs would vote in favour of the ruling coalition in the trust motion Tuesday.

"We have 281 MPs. The figure is stable and will go up further," Paswan said at a press conference here. The government needs 272 votes to win the confidence motion.

Paswan held that the Congress-led UPA - of which his LJP is a part - was together "on principles of economic growth, secularism and social justice".

On the other hand, the three opposition groups were playing opportunistic politics, he charged.

"This government is bringing a confidence motion on the India-US nuclear deal. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party) is opposing the motion. But it is not willing to talk about the deal. What is this if it is not opportunism?"

Paswan said the move by the Left parties to withdraw support to the government over the deal after having supported the UPA for over four years "has nothing to do with ideology. If that had been the case, they wouldn't have joined hands with the BJP. Their problem is that one or two of their leaders have made it a prestige issue to oppose the prime minister."

The central minister was more dismissive about the third locus ranged against the government, the Bahujan Samaj Party led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. "She is not bothered about any ideology," Paswan said.

He welcomed the opportunity for debate on the nuclear deal that the confidence motion would bring. "We'll show how the deal is good for the country. You'll see, the opposition won't even talk about the deal during the debate.

"Ninety percent of the people in this country have not read the actual deal. It will not affect our foreign policy (as charged by the opposition). That has been stable since the time of (India's first prime minister Jawaharlal) Nehru and will remain so.

"Our victory on July 22 will signal our victory in the next election."

Cussedness, underhand dealings mark countdown to trust vote

Commentary By Amulya Ganguli

The prelude to the July 22 trust vote in parliament on the nuclear deal on which the fate of the Manmohan Singh government depends has added yet another dark chapter of opportunism and horse-trading to Indian politics.

In their frantic bids to cobble up support, neither the government nor the opposition has covered itself with glory. While the former has been accused of doling out sops to woo the fence-sitters, including a possible cabinet berth for Shibu Soren, a former minister who was jailed on charges of murder, the Left has committed what is a cardinal sin in parliamentary politics - dragging the speaker into a controversy.

By including Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's name in the list of MPs who are withdrawing support to the government, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has not only outraged jurists but also provoked dissensions in its own ranks.

While Chatterjee has asked everyone to wait till July 22 to find out what he does, others have taken umbrage at the way he has been treated. Speculation that Chatterjee is unwilling to vote with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the nuclear deal has been virtually confirmed by West Bengal Minister Subhas Chakraborty, who is known to be close to Jyoti Basu, the nonagenarian Marxist patriarch.

Several Muslim members of the CPI-M have also voiced their disquiet about their party voting along with the BJP. Since the "communal" BJP is supposed to pose a major threat to India's secular social fabric, the CPI-M has long claimed to be its main opponent. Its support to the Manmohan Singh government was based on the premise of keeping the BJP out of power.

But now with the Marxists on the same side of the fence as the BJP, the CPI-M is a trifle embarrassed. Its explanation that the Congress too has voted with the BJP to bring down several governments may not be too convincing since it equates a "bourgeois-landlord" party with the party of the proletariat, which is expected to set a higher standard.

The indirect links with the BJP are not the Left's only worry. After being ditched by an old ally, the Samajwadi Party, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), who is the Samajwadi Party's main adversary in the state. But it is this tie-up between a party that swears by class with one that depends on caste which can seem odd even to the party faithful.

No less significant is the fact that the alliance between the CPI-M and the BSP brings the Left another step closer to the BJP since it is widely believed that the post-poll scene will see yet another example of cohabitation between the BSP and the BJP.

The contacts that the BSP have established with another critic of the nuclear deal, the Telugu Desam Party, suggest that the former is trying to take the Samajwadi Party's place in the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) or the so-called Third Front with the CPI-M's blessings.

But any such initiative will be a curious one since the UNPA is supposed to be an anti-Congress and anti-BJP combination. However, the BSP's earlier and possibly future understanding with the BJP goes against the UNPA's main
purpose.

What these crosscurrents suggest is that although the Left claims to have based its opposition to the nuclear deal on an ideological objection to any proximity to the US, ideology has played little part in its attempts to defeat the government on the floor of the house. To achieve this end, the Left has had no compunctions about tying up with both casteist and communal parties, either directly or indirectly.

Evidently, it is indulging in the kind of opportunistic games which it often accuses the "bourgeois" parties of playing. Its adherence to ideology in one respect has apparently made it lose sight of principles in another.

Turning a blind eye to ethical norms is nothing new in Indian politics, but if the present efforts seem rather more frenetic than usual, the reason is the narrow difference between the two sides in parliament.

As a result, since every vote counts, no holds are being barred in trying to win friends and influence people. Although the Congress cannot be unaware that the inclusion of Shibu Soren in the ministry will be an indelible black mark on its record, it apparently cannot afford to lose the five votes of his party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), for the sake of high principles.

Ironically, the case involving the former minister is related to an earlier instance of the Congress government of P.V. Narasimha Rao buying support from the JMM. A subsequent falling out within the JMM over the distribution of the money led to the murder.

Apart from Shibu Soren, the government has secured the release, with the judiciary's permission, of several criminals who are also MPs.

Whether or not the nuclear deal is signed, the accompanying political process in India has been a tale of obstructionism, cussedness and underhand dealings. Yet, none of this would have been necessary if there was a greater

realisation of the value of the deal and a principled refusal by both sides to take recourse to dubious manoeuvres.

IANS