NDA asks UPA government to seek confidence vote in week

New Delhi, Jul 9 (UNI) The Opposition NDA today demanded the Manmohan Singh led UPA coalition to seek a confidence vote for which an emergency session of Parliament should be convened in a week.

The NDA leaders who met at the residence of Leader of the Opposition L K Advani unanimously decided to vote against the UPA government. After the four Left parties withdrew their support to the UPA on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government had been reduced to a minority and had lost all moral or political authority to continue in office.

Briefing newspersons after an one and a half-hour-long meeting, NDA spokesperson Sushma Swaraj accused the Congress of trying to create confusion over the timing of Parliament Session.

While Lok Sabha leader Pranab Mukherjee had stated that any decision to proceed with the Indo-US nuclear deal would be taken only after confidence vote. However, the Congress was trying to create confusion by stating that the it would face the confidence vote in the Monsoon Session. "There can't be any normal Parliament session but a special session solely for the government to show its majority in five to six days", she said.

Asked if the NDA leaders would be meeting President Pratibha Patil, Mrs Swaraj said the NDA had not yet decided about this.

Among those who attended the meeting included Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh, BJP President Rajnath Singh, Manohar Joshi and Anant Geete of Shiv Sena, Mr Sharad Yadav, George Fernandes and Digvijay Singh from Janata Dal (United), Mr B J Panda, Biju Janata Dal and Mr S S Dhindsa (Akali Dal).

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