Karat announces the Left withdrawal in Delhi on Tuesday. (AFP)

New Delhi, July 8: The Left out of the way, the Manmohan Singh government has jumpstarted preparations for a trust vote in Parliament aimed at fast-tracking the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Long in the making, the dam broke this morning when Prakash Karat and the leaders of three other Left parties announced that they were withdrawing support to the government following the Prime Minister’s comments yesterday that made clear the government was pressing ahead with the nuclear deal.

As if on cue, the Congress activated a plan that had been finalised last Friday at a core committee meeting, under which the government will seek a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha — possibly on July 21 or 22 — and then approach the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board in Vienna with a safeguards agreement.

The loss of support of the 59 Left MPs technically robs the government of a majority. The support of the Samajwadi Party, in which some murmurs of dissent have surfaced, could still leave the UPA short of eight to 10 MPs.

But Congress managers and ministers have started mopping-up operations among fencesitter MPs who total 64. In the run-up to the trust vote, the numbers could seesaw.

The government is keen to go to Vienna via the Lok Sabha because it feels that a trust vote would signal to the world that the treaty carried the stamp of parliamentary sanction although constitutionally such a seal is not required.

Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, the recipient of the Left letter announcing the withdrawal as he was the convener of the joint committee on the nuclear deal, said: “We will seek a trust vote at the earliest because we want to go to the IAEA at the earliest.”

Long before the Left meets President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday to formally withdraw support, the Prime Minister would have breakfasted with President George W. Bush and handed over the responsibility of shepherding the deal to its logical end by using US influence with the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Back-channel talks have already taken place between the Prime Minister and Bush to complete these procedures before the deal was piloted in the US Congress in one of the last sittings presided over by the present dispensation. The slim timeline explained why Singh was so keen to get his party's go-ahead before getting the G8 on his side.

Back home, shortly after the Left’s announcement, the Samajwadi Party iterated that it would back the government in a trust vote.

While Samajwadi leaders claimed their support had no strings attached, at least two of its 39 MPs — Chaudhury Munnawar Hasan and Jai Prakash Rawat — said they would defy the party’s whip and vote against the deal.

The reluctance of Samajwadi chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to take a head-count of his MPs in a meeting this morning fuelled speculation that his flock was not intact. Mulayam paraded his Muslim MPs before TV and kept himself and his lieutenant Amar Singh out of the frame.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi called Amar to her residence this evening to be assured that things were on track and the shadow of 1999 — when Mulayam indicated he would back Sonia as Prime Minister and then recanted — would not revisit her.

After meeting Sonia, Amar said he would give a fresh letter of support to the President on Wednesday with a precise count of his MPs.

Although Hasan and Rawat are technically with Yadav, they claimed they had switched sides to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in lieu of a Lok Sabha ticket. The Congress is keeping a wary eye on the BSP, fearing a raid on disgruntled Samajwadis.

The Congress’s number-crunchers claimed that despite the split with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, its lone MP, Mehbooba Mufti, pledged her vote to the UPA.

Numbers jigsaw

Here’s how the numbers stack up for the UPA. The halfway mark is 272 and minus the Left, the UPA has 225 votes. If 37 of the 39 Samajwadis vote for it, it has 262 MPs — 10 short of majority.

Ajit Singh’s three MPs could raise the number to 265. The government is counting on the three MPs of the Janata Dal (Secular), two of the National Conference and five Independents.

POLITICAL PRIMER

What will the Left have to do to formally withdraw support?

The President will have to be informed. The Left will do so on Wednesday.

Can the government then be termed a minority government?

No, not until a trust vote has been taken.

What are the options before the President?

Once doubts are cast about the government’s majority, the President usually asks the government to prove its strength on the floor of the Lok Sabha within a specific time frame (usually 10-15 days). In this case, though, the government itself has announced it would seek a trust vote.

When is that likely to happen?

No date has been set yet, but the government is likely to want it soon after the Prime Minister’s return from the G8 Summit. July 21 and 22 are being considered. This means the government may call a special one-day session, instead of waiting for the monsoon session scheduled to begin on August 11.

Two reasons could explain the need for an early trust vote: the IAEA board of
governors is likely to meet on July 28, and the government’s political managers won’t like to lose time once they have mopped up the necessary numbers to win the vote.

Is the Samajwadi Party’s support enough for the government to survive the trust vote?

Not with the SP alone. The government will require the support of 8 to 10 more MPs in addition to the official SP strength of 39 for a simple majority. At the moment there are 64 MPs, other than the NDA and the Left, with uncommitted views on the nuclear deal. There is a question mark on whether the SP leadership will have all 39 MPs behind its
decision to back the nuclear deal, but Congress managers are working overtime to gather support from uncommitted groups and Independents.

What is the key rule for trust votes? Is it about members present and voting?

It is members present and voting, so individuals or groups may bail out the
government by choosing to be absent or abstain.

During the trust vote, won’t the Left have to vote with its sworn enemy, the BJP?

That is a distinct possibility and the BJP is keen to embarrass the Left on that count.

Does the government need to win a trust vote to go to the IAEA?

Not constitutionally. But ethical questions can be raised. A trust vote victory and a subsequent move to the IAEA can add to the domestic saleability of the deal.

What happens after the trust vote?

If the UPA wins the trust vote, it is largely safe for the next six months as a no-confidence motion cannot be moved before that. If it loses, elections will have to be called and a new House constituted within six months of the Lok Sabha being dissolved.