Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Indian confidence vote
Unheard of political alliances. Accusations of vote-buying to the tune of more than $6 million an MP. Criticisms of shady corporate lobbying with one of the world's richest men. With the fate of the government dependent on a confidence vote on Tuesday, mudslinging and deal-making are in full swing and even sullying the relatively clean image of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. PM Manmohan Singh believes he will survive the vote after securing support of Samajwadi Party.
"The government will not survive the trust vote even when it's indulging in large-scale horse trading," Vijay Kumar Malhotra, senior BJP leader, told The Indian Express. He estimated the government only had 250 votes of the 272 needed for a majority.
Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram urged lawmakers to back the government in today's confidence vote so the nation can emulate China's "superpower'' status and use nuclear energy to drive economic growth.
IMO: Certainly a clue as to why the communists oppose the bill. The naxals may well believe they are winning anyway. And ham-handed USA may end up with one major enemy, an aggressive and poor China/India coalition which will certainly 'take no prisoners'.
Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani said ``We are not at all opposed to a relationship with America but we would never like India to be a party to an agreement which is unequal. My charge is that this deal makes us subservient.''
IMO: Sounds reasonable, but NRI Americans will generally not care for that. In any case the situation is bleak for the USA, which should have been more reasonable right from the start.
Unheard of political alliances. Accusations of vote-buying to the tune of more than $6 million an MP. Criticisms of shady corporate lobbying with one of the world's richest men. With the fate of the government dependent on a confidence vote on Tuesday, mudslinging and deal-making are in full swing and even sullying the relatively clean image of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. PM Manmohan Singh believes he will survive the vote after securing support of Samajwadi Party.
"The government will not survive the trust vote even when it's indulging in large-scale horse trading," Vijay Kumar Malhotra, senior BJP leader, told The Indian Express. He estimated the government only had 250 votes of the 272 needed for a majority.
Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram urged lawmakers to back the government in today's confidence vote so the nation can emulate China's "superpower'' status and use nuclear energy to drive economic growth.
IMO: Certainly a clue as to why the communists oppose the bill. The naxals may well believe they are winning anyway. And ham-handed USA may end up with one major enemy, an aggressive and poor China/India coalition which will certainly 'take no prisoners'.
Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani said ``We are not at all opposed to a relationship with America but we would never like India to be a party to an agreement which is unequal. My charge is that this deal makes us subservient.''
IMO: Sounds reasonable, but NRI Americans will generally not care for that. In any case the situation is bleak for the USA, which should have been more reasonable right from the start.
# posted by uv : 3:55 AM
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