New Delhi, July 22
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today became the second ever Congress Prime Minister to move a motion of confidence - the Lok Sabha has seen 12 confidence motions till date - and win it too. Earlier, P.V. Narsimha Rao had sought trust of the House and won it on July 15, 1991. Manmohan Singh, however, could not near the record of Rao, whose trust vote was won with the widest ever margin of 131 votes.
The victory margin today was 19, more than the narrowest ever margin of victory - the one on trust vote moved by Atal Behari Vajpayee in March 1998. This vote was won by 15 votes. Vajpayee in fact holds a record of sorts - he won trust vote in his first term as the Prime Minister by the narrowest margin of 15 votes; and lost trust of the House in his second term as the PM by the narrowest margin of one vote.
A fairly recent phenomenon, thanks to minority and coalition governments, the first such motion of confidence was moved in the sixth Lok Sabha in 1979 by the then Prime Minister Charan Singh. It was not voted as Singh tendered his resignation, and the House was adjourned sine die.
So far, the Lok Sabha has seen 12 confidence motions (including today’s) by eight prime ministers. The highest - three notices - for trust vote were moved by Vajpayee. Two motions of confidence each were given by V.P. Singh in the ninth Lok Sabha and H.D. Deve Gowda in the 11th Lok Sabha. PMs Chandra Shekhar, Narsimha Rao and I.K. Gujral moved one motion each, while Charan Singh’s August 1979 motion was not voted as he had resigned.
Interestingly, Vajpayee has the distinction of being the only Lok Sabha member who moved a motion of no confidence against an incumbent government, faced a no confidence motion as the Prime Minister and later moved a motion of confidence in his council of ministers.
History indicates that most trust votes survived. Out of 12 sought so far, only five led to the fall of governments in cases of PMs Charan Singh (in August 1979), V.P. Singh (in November 1990), Vajpayee (first in May 1996 and then again in April 1999) and H.D. Dewe Gowda (in April 1997). Margin-wise, the confidence motion moved by V.P. Singh in November 1990 was defeated with the widest ever margin of 204 votes; rest of the confidence motions were adopted by the House and the governments, like today, survived.
But not without putting in strenuous hours at debating - total time taken by the Lok Sabha in debating the 12 confidence motions (including today’s motion) stands at over 133 hours spread over 18 days.
