No-confidence motion against TMC government defeated

Trinamool Congress government defeated the no-confidence motion jointly moved by Congress and Left Front.

The motion was defeated by 191 votes against it and 50 in its favour after a one-and-a-half hour long debate in which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticised the no-confidence motion brought against her government saying: “Those who do not have confidence in themselves brings no-confidence motion against a government that came to power just six months ago with blessings of the people in the state. Moreover, the result of the recent elections held in Manteswar and Tamluk has also proved that the people have enormous confidence in us”.

“Such no-confidence motion is baseless when we are jointly fighting with your parties in Parliament against demonetisation. I don’t want that our co-ordination with the other political parties in Opposition in the Centre gets hampered,” she said.

She said: “We have to keep in mind that there is something called decorum and courtesy in politics. The no-confidence motion has been moved at such a time when all political parties in Opposition have come together against the Centre and are jointly raising the issue of suffering of people due to demonetisation.”

“The reason behind moving the no-confidence motion is that you all are seeing the ghost of Manas Bhunia in front of you all,” she said.

It may be mentioned that Bhunia had joined Trinamool Congress leaving Congress a few months ago and one of the reasons as cited by leaders of both Left Front and Congress for moving no-confidence motion is that their MLAs were joining Trinamool Congress one after the other. They raised allegations that the MLAs had joined Trinamool Congress “after being provided with certain benefits” and Bhunia changed the party to avoid getting arrested in connection with the murder of a leader of the ruling party in Sabang.

“They claimed that MLAs were enticed with benefits. I don’t want to reveal the names, but there are still some in the Opposition who were in contact with our leaders with an aspiration of joining the party,” she said.

Interrupting the Chief Minister, Left Front Legislative party leader Sujan Chakraborty claimed that she had even contacted Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M)’s General Secretary, over phone. Taking a jibe at Chakraborty, she said that the call was made out of political courtesy and she would no more call either Yechury or him as he didn’t know the courtesy.

She ended the debate saying that “CPI(M) and Congress have turned to sign boards. Thus such no-confidence is baseless.”