PM Modi consults top ministers on poll losses, ways to end turmoil

New Delhi: With speculation agog that the NDA’s unhappy ally Telugu Desam Party may support a YSR Congress-sponsored no-confidence motion which it aims to move in the Lok Sabha on March 16 against the government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday evening held a high-level meeting with some of his top Cabinet colleagues to chart out a strategy for tackling the ongoing political turmoil.

The meeting was held just a day after the BJP-led NDA was jolted by reverses suffered in two key Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha byelections of Gorakhpur and Phulpur at the hands of the Samajwadi Party.

Highly-placed sources confirmed to this newspaper that the meeting, attended by home minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jaitley, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, transport minister Nitin Gadkari and parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar along with BJP president Amit Shah, discussed at length the trouble brewing down south given the speculation gaining traction that the TDP, which has already withdrawn its representatives from the Union Council of Ministers, may back the no-confidence motion moved by its rival in the state, the YSR Congress. Sources further said that at the meeting,  held at the Prime Minister’s residence, ways to end the ongoing logjam in Parliament that has been held hostage to disruptions by the Opposition parties, and even the TDP and YSR Congress, over issues ranging from the PNB fraud and Nirav Modi controversy to Andhra Pradesh being given special category status, was also discussed.

Even the losses suffered by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s home turf Gorakhpur and deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya’s Phulpur Lok Sabha seats to the Samajwadi Party in bypolls were analysed threadbare, sources added.

YSR Congress MP from Ongole Y.V. Subba Reddy on Thursday gave a notice to the Lok Sabha secretary-general to move a no-confidence motion against the government on March 16. With TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu having called the party’s politburo meeting in Amaravati on Friday, the political grapevine feels that it may pull out of the NDA completely.

A no-confidence motion requires the support of at least 50 MPs to be accepted, and given the fact that the YSR Congress has just nine MPs and the TDP 16 in the Lok Sabha, it could fall through.

With the BJP alone having 274 members in the 536-member Lok Sabha and enjoying support of allies having over 56 members, the no-confidence motion, if accepted, is certain to be defeated.

However, sources pointed out that its very introduction may cause embarrassment to the Centre.

Meanwhile YSR Congress chief Jagamohan Reddy is learnt to have written to various parties to seek support for the no-confidence motion. The YSR Congress chief is said to have indicated that if the Centre does not grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh, all his MPs would resign from the Lok Sabha.

Also, with the YSR Congress being the main Opposition party in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, by giving a notice for a no-confidence motion, it has stolen a march over the TDP on the issue of seeking special status for the state, an issue on which both have been stalling the parliamentary proceedings for the past nine days.