Indian govt's trial of strength on July 22

NEW DELHI  - The four-year-old UPA government will face its first trust vote in the Lok Sabha on July 22 with Congress President Sonia Gandhi asking coalition partners to "look ahead" after Left's exit while exuding confidence of securing majority, reports the Indian media.

A two-day special session of the Lok Sabha will be convened on July 21 to take up the vote of confidence and voting will take place the next day, the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs decided on Friday.

The CCPA meeting came a day after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Pratibha Patil and expressed his government's readiness to seek a trust vote following Left parties with 59 members withdrawing support to it for going to the IAEA to take forward the Indo-US nuclear deal.

At present, the government has 225 assured seats in India's 545-member directly elected lower house, Lok Sabha, far short of the number required for a simple majority.

"I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority," Sonia Gandhi said in her opening remarks at a meeting of the UPA Coordination Committee where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explained the developments related to the nuclear deal.

As the numbers game intensified, top UPA leaders held a strategy session here with Sonia Gandhi, expressing confidence of garnering numbers to prove their majority.

The meeting, which was attended by representatives of most of the UPA constituents, assessed the numbers that the ruling coalition has on its side after the departure of Left parties, whose dissociation was regretted by Sonia.

Sonia welcomed the support of the Samajwadi party. She said that before the Left had withdrawn their support, the Prime Minister said that he would not operationalise the agreement without taking Parliament into confidence, and that the UPA supported the position.

She also expressed confidence that the UPA would prove its majority and work to fulfil its remaining agenda.

According to AFP, last week, the regional socialist Samajwadi Party with 39 MPs promised to vote for the government, but still far away from a simple majority, the Congress is currently shopping for support.

"Everybody is prepared for a vote of confidence," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee also said.

Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who heads a party allied to Congress, also insisted that "there is no doubt that we will get a confidence vote in our favour." In New Delhi, intense lobbying was underway Friday with Congress reaching out to smaller parties who now hold the key to the balance of power.

But many preferred to keep the party guessing.

"I am the lone MP from my state," said Wangyuh Konyak, who represents the remote northeastern state of Nagaland.

"I will decide the day before the trust vote," Konyak told AFP.

Author and political analyst Rasheed Kidwai noted that it was "the government which asked for a confidence vote, which they would have avoided if they did not have the numbers.

"This shows the government must have its arithmetic all worked out."

According to the Hindustan Times, a highlight of the meeting was the presence of JMM MP Hemlal Murmu amid speculation that the five-MP strong Jharkhand outfit was unhappy with the Congress after its supremo Shibu Soren was not re-inducted into the Government.

LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan was not present at the meeting as he is away in London. Also absent was AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who was attending to some family matters in Hyderabad.

The Congress Presdient thanked the Left parties "who have been with us during these last four years" and said without their support the UPA could not have been formed and "a good deal" of what has been "achieved" would not have been possible.

Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi regretted the Left parties' dissociation with the ruling UPA and put on record her appreciation for them.