The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday defeated a no-confidence motion in parliament after a fiery speech by Modi at the climax of a three-day debate.
Opposition lawmakers — who had brought the motion over months of ethnic violence in Manipur state — walked out of the chamber, prompting a furious rebuke from the prime minister, with the government then winning the vote.
Broadcasters said the walkouts included Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, who on Wednesday said Modi’s government was “set on burning the whole country.”
Photo: AFP
Modi denounced them, saying: “Those who don’t trust democracy are always ready to make a comment, but don’t have the patience to hear” the rebuttal.
They would “speak ill and run away, throw garbage and run away, spread lies and run away,” he added, to cheers from his own benches.
“This is their game and the country can’t expect much from them,” he said.
The no-confidence vote was dismissed by the government ahead of the vote as a headline-grabbing gimmick ahead of a general election next year.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has a large majority in the 543-member lower house, and is widely expected to win a third term in power.
Its muscular appeals to India’s Hindu majority have proven a winning formula, and Modi has already steered it to two landslide victories over Gandhi and his Congress Party.
“I can understand the Congress Party’s problem,” Modi said. “They have been launching the same failed product again and again, but the launch fails every time.”
Gandhi, 53, is the son, grandson and great-grandson of three former Indian prime ministers.
He spearheaded the parliamentary attack on the government on Wednesday, condemning what he said was Modi’s inaction over the deadly Manipur violence.
In a speech to lawmakers, Gandhi had charged that Modi was “killing Mother India.”
The opposition leader was restored to parliament on Monday after the Supreme Court suspended his defamation conviction over past comments criticizing Modi.
Gandhi was in March sentenced to two years in prison in a cast that critics flagged as an effort to stifle political opposition.
Modi’s party has been repeatedly accused by political opponents and rights groups of fomenting religious divisions for electoral purposes.
At least 152 people have been killed in Manipur since May, according to government figures, after armed clashes broke out between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki community.
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