'What arrogance', says PM Modi on Sonia Gandhi's '272' remark

New Delhi, July 20: Targetting Sonia Gandhi over her recent statement on strength of the parties supporting the no-confidence motion, PM Modi said he was reminded of 1999, when she joined other parties to challenge the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"She stood outside Rashtrapati Bhavan and said, 'we have 272 and more are joining us'. She destabilised Atal-Ji's government and never formed one herself," he said.

When asked about the no-confidence motion brought by her party among others, Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday retorted: "Who says we don't have the numbers?".

The Congress leader had uttered similar words in 1999.
''We have 272 and we hope to get more,'' she declared outside Rashtrapati Bhavan in April 1999, just as she said she did to the then President KR Narayanan about her party's chances of forming the government and disl odging the BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee one. At the time, 545 was the strength in Parliament.

But her statement turned out to be a miscalculation as her party could not form government after the fall of the BJP-led Atal Bihari Vajpayee government by one vote.

Earlier today, the Opposition launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led government over unfulfilled promises and the Rafale deal. While the TDP's Jayadev Galla initiated the debate on the no-confidence motion and attacked the Modi government for ignoring the interests of Andhra Pradesh after Telangana was carved out of it, Congress President Rahul Gandhi raised the issue of Rafale fighter aircraft deal and making "tall' promises without fulfilling them.

After 12 hours of debate in the Lok Sabha, the no-confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government has been defeated as 325 lawmakers voted against the motion and 126 voted for the motion.