Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi, July 08: The UPA finds itself between the devil and the deep sea over the nuclear deal. If it goes ahead and signs the deal it may well find itself facing a premature election now that the Left has withdrawn support.
The UPA is looking at SP support to bail itself out in case of a no-confidence vote. But with reports coming in that some of the SP MPs might rebel, the UPA will be forced to find the missing numbers from somewhere else.
Here is how the numbers stack up:
The strength of the present Lok Sabha is 543, so a party needs to garner 272 votes to be in a majority. The UPA has 225 members. The SP, which has agreed to give support, has 39 members. But the actual numbers may fall to 35 because of disgruntled MPs like Beniprasad Verma.
If the Government secures 35 SP votes, the total will reach 260 which is 12 short of 272.After Mahbooba Mufti's announcement that her party would be supporting the UPA, the number comes to 261 and 11 becomes the magic number.
If Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) bring in three MPS; then the Government will be eight short of passing the floor test.
The Janata Dal (Secular), former prime minister H D Deve Gowda’s party, has promised the support of its two MPs. The Government then has 266 votes but it’s still six short.
Its a matter of survival for the Government, so it’s wooing a host of political leaders and minor parties. Significant among them are three of the six Independents, the BNP of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the NLP of Uttar Pradesh, the SDF of Sikkim and MNF of Mizoram. All these parties have one MP each.
Finally, the Government is also trying to rope in the All India Trinamool Congress of West Bengal and the National Conference of Jammu and Kashmir. The two parties have three MPs in total. With their support, the Government should reach a figure of 278 to 280—more than the majority mark.
First Published: Tuesday, July 08, 2008, 00:00