Today in Politics: All eyes on no-trust showdown in LS, Haryana Cong brass head to Nuh, anti-UCC move in Kerala House

The motion of no-confidence will be moved by Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi in the Lok Sabha, stating “That this House expresses its want of confidence in the Council of Ministers”.

The motion will not pose any threat to the Modi government as the numbers are heavily stacked in its favour. In the 543-member House, the BJP-led NDA government has 331 members, with the BJP alone accounting for 303 MPs. It also has the backing of the YSRCP’s 22 and the BJD’s 12 MPs.

The newly-forged INDIA alliance of the 26 Opposition parties, led by the Congress, have 144 MPs. It will have the support of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)’s 9 MPs.

The Opposition, however, has a deeper reason for moving this no-confidence motion, the first one during PM Modi’s second term, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. As Liz Mathew and Manoj C G report, “While the overwhelming NDA majority means the Modi government will easily survive the no-trust motion, the Opposition plans to use the debate to nail it over a range of issues, including the ongoing violence in Manipur, and to force Prime Minister Modi to speak on the situation on the floor of the House.”

Following his return as an MP, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is now set to be among the key speakers in the Opposition ranks on the no-confidence motion.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat notified the restoration of Rahul’s membership on Monday morning, before the day’s House proceedings began. It was about four months ago that the conviction by a Surat court over remarks on the Modi surname had caused his membership to be revoked. His conviction was stayed by the Supreme Court last Friday.

Upbeat over the development, especially just before the no-trust motion debate, many INDIA bloc MPs were seen walking up to Rahul to congratulate him in the House when he returned there Monday.

BJP sources said the party was readying data that will highlight the long history of trouble in the Northeast, for most part of which the Congress controlled the region. The Opposition sees it as probably the last chance for it to “expose the fallacy” of the Modi government’s double-engine government argument, ahead of key state elections and 2024 polls.

In the Rajya Sabha, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya is scheduled to move for consideration and passage of the National Dental Commission Bill, 2023 to regulate the profession of dentistry in the country, to provide for quality and affordable dental education, and to make accessible high quality oral healthcare. The Bill has already been passed by the Lok Sabha.

On the Manipur front, a five-member delegation of the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) will meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi Tuesday and raise their five key demands, including a separate political administration and a mass burial in Churachandpur district of the Kuki-Zo community members killed in the ethnic violence since May 3.

“We have five main demands. Our political demand of total separation from Manipur should be speeded up. As the burial of the bodies of the Kuki-Zo community members delayed, the bodies are now lying in Imphal and all the bodies should be brought to Churachandpur,” ITLF secretary Muan Tombing told PTI.

On other demands, Tombing said that the burial site at S. Boljang in Churachandpur should be legalised, all “Meitei state forces” should not be deployed in hill districts for the safety of the Kuki-Zo community members and tribal jail inmates in Imphal should be transferred to other states for their safety.

Mizoram CM Zoramthanga has expressed hope that these talks will yield results.

In Haryana’s Nuh district, which was convulsed by communal violence on July 31, the situation is slowly returning to normalcy. In the violence that spread to adjoining districts like Gurgaon, six people, including two home guards and a cleric, were killed.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court Monday halted the demolition drive in Nuh where authorities were bulldozing “illegally-constructed” buildings following communal clashes. In the last three days, illegal constructions have been removed from 57.5 acres of land at 37 places in the district. Curfew was relaxed in Nuh from 9 am till 1 pm on Moday.

A delegation of Haryana Congress leaders, led by its state chief Udai Bhan and CLP leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, will visit the violence-affected areas of Nuh Tuesday. It is, however, not yet clear if the district administration will allow them to visit the areas.

The Congress announced its decision moments after party president Mallikarjun Kharge chaired a meeting of Haryana Congress leaders in New Delhi. Rahul Gandhi was also present at the meeting that was attended by Bhan, Hooda and other senior Congress leaders, including Randeep Singh Surjewala, Kiran Choudhry and several present and former MLAs of Haryana.

On their visit to Nuh, as Varinder Bhatia reports, Hooda said, “The purpose of this visit is to re-establish peace and brotherhood in the area and find out the truth. The Congress has raised the demand for a judicial inquiry into the Nuh violence under the supervision of a High Court judge. If the BJP-JJP government had taken proper steps in time and seriously considered the sensitivity of the situation, this violence would not have happened.”

In Chandigarh, JJP leader and Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala will address a press conference Tuesday.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the CPI(M)-led LDF government will move a resolution in the Kerala Assembly to urge the Centre to withdraw its plan to

implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country. CM Pinarayi Vijayan will present the resolution in the Assembly, as per the list of business of the House.

As Shaju Philip reports, since both the LDF government and the Opposition Congress-led UDF are opposing the UCC, in all likelihood the resolution will be passed unanimously in the Assembly, where the BJP does not have any legislator. Both the CPI(M) and the Congress have already held a series of seminars and conventions in the state as part of their campaigns against the UCC.

In recent years, the Kerala Assembly had passed resolutions against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the Centre’s now-repealed controversial farm laws.

In January 2020, Kerala became the first state to pass a resolution against the CAA. Then the resolution was moved by CM Vijayan and seconded by then Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala.

In 2021, the Kerala Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution, urging the Union government to accede to the demands of the agitating farmers and take immediate measures to repeal the three farm laws.

Meanwhile, in Bengaluru, CM Siddaramaiah is set to hold meetings Tuesday with district in-charge ministers and MLAs of Raichur, Kalaburagi, Vijayanagara, Koppal, Haveri and Belagavi to discuss and resolve various local development concerns. The meetings are being held following complaints by several Congress MLAs that the ministers were not addressing the development issues flagged by them in their constituencies.

On Monday, the first day of such meetings, district in-charge ministers and MLAs of Tumkur, Yadgir, Chitradurga, Bagalkot, Ballari and Dharwad met Siddaramaiah. These meetings are expected to continue till Wednesday.