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New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought the confidence of the Lok Sabha yesterday and said the trust vote was avoidable as he had promised to return to parliament before operationalising the contentious nuclear deal with Washington.
"It [the trust motion] was fully avoidable," Manmohan Singh said as he moved the one-line motion seeking the trust of parliament for his government.
"I have repeatedly assured all, including the Left parties, that I myself would come to the guidance of parliament before operationalising the nuclear deal, if we were allowed to go to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] to finalise the India-specific safeguards [agreement]," Singh said.
He said he regretted that the government had to seek a trust vote at a time its attention was on the economy, especially on controlling inflation and "implementing the welfare programmes for the people, particularly the farmers".
Interestingly, the prime minister was not expected to speak after moving the trust motion. According to his personal aides, Singh, who arrived at his parliament house office at around 10.30am, wrote the brief speech himself.
Assurance
The prime minister reiterated that he and his government had taken all the decisions in the best interests of the Indian people.
"I assure the house and the country that every single decision, every policy decision was taken in the fullest confidence that it was in the best interest of the people of the country."
In what is being seen as a snipe at the CPI-M's present leadership, especially its general-secretary Prakash Karat, Singh praised the "sagacity, wisdom and visionary leadership" of communist veterans Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet who he said were the architects of the coalition government.
The prime minister also cited Guru Gobind Singh for showing his determination to go ahead without being scared of the repercussions.
In an uncharacteristic intervention, Singh countered Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani's criticism over his stance on the nuclear tests of 1998.
"The leader of opposition has said that in 1998 I had opposed the test and that I was arguing for nuclear proliferation during my speech in the Rajya Sabha.
"Let an objective person read the test of my speech and conclude ...," he said, while intervening during Advani's speech.
He added he had made his comments on the nuclear tests in the context of non-proliferation goals that India had put forward in the UN in 1988.
BJP makes stand clear
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will renegotiate the India-US civil nuclear deal if it came to power, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani said yesterday during the trust vote debate that will decide the fate of the Manmohan Singh government.
During his hour-long speech in which he covered a range of issues, including internal security and the price rise, Advani said he was neither against nuclear energy nor against a "strategic relationship" with the US.
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