Trinamul MPs prepare to sit on a dharna in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament. The MPs protested against the non-allocation of a room for the party in the House complex. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

Nov. 22: The Trinamul Congress sponsored no-trust motion collapsed with a whimper in the Lok Sabha today, disallowed by the Speaker after the notice failed to muster the minimum required number of endorsements.

Coming on the heels of the “fiasco” over initially opposing Pranab Mukherjee’s candidature as President, the aborted no-trust motion will be seen as another example of Mamata Banerjee’s lack of grasp over national politics, some Trinamul leaders conceded today.

Mamata Banerjee’s party could get only 21 MPs, against the 50 prescribed, to back the motion despite Trinamul Lok Sabha leader

Sudip Bandyopadhyay walked up to the BJP, Samajwadi Party, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the JD(U) seeking support. But Trinamul’s outside support was restricted to three MPs from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) members.

But the BJD, too, appeared to be offering only token support as just three of its 14 MPs were present when the matter was taken up. The three MPs are Bhartruhari Mahtab, Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and Prasanna Kumar Patasani.

“We wanted to make our political stand very clear that we were strongly opposed to the policies of the UPA government and, therefore, we supported the no-confidence motion,” Singh Deo said.

SUCI’s lone MP Tarun Mandal, too, did not stand up in support. With 18 Trinamul MPs (minus dissident Kabir Suman) and the BJD’s three, the support for the motion could not cross 21.

“I have to inform the House that the member does not have the leave of the House, as less than 50 members have risen in support of the motion,” Speaker Meira Kumar announced, disallowing the motion.

By then, Sudip had reached out to SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Trinamul leader then walked to the other side to leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and thereafter to Akali leaders and finally JD(U) president Sharad Yadav. Sushma was seen sitting quietly as Sudip stood in front of her and spoke to her. Sudip, however, refrained from approaching the Left leaders though CPM’s Basudeb Acharia and CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta were present in the House.

After the motion fell through, Mamata wrote on a Facebook post that her party had exposed “the saviours of the government”.

A section of Trinamul leaders feel that Mamata’s “desperation” to topple the government in Delhi is also linked to the Centre’s moves to “tighten the screws” around some of the MPs close to her.

The Samajwadi Party and the BSP today demonstrated ambivalence on whether there should be a discussion in Parliament on FDI in retail under provisions which entail voting.

After a meeting with party MPs, SP chief Mulayam Singh said: “Let the matter come up first in the House, then we will see. Why ask this question outside?”

BSP MPs also did not speak out clearly on the issue. “The Centre should first decide under which rule it wanted the discussion in Parliament on FDI. First, the government has to decide, then we will make our stand clear on the floor of the House,” BSP chief Mayawati told reporters outside Parliament.