Congress govt in Andhra Pradesh survives no trust motion

After 16-hour-long bitter and tedious debate in the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly, the Telugu Desam sponsored no-trust motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government was defeated squarely.

Of the 287 members, 122 voted in favour of the motion, while 161 voted against it. One member abstained and three members were not present in the house.

But the most significant news is that 16 Congress MLAs, owing loyalty to YSR Congress President YS Jaganmohan Reddy, voted in support of the motion. One rebel member of Praja Rajyam Party, Shobha Nagi Reddy, also joined the pro Jagan group in voting against the government.

With this the effective strength of the Congress party in the house has come down 137 and it will now be thoroughly dependent on the support of friendly parties Praja Rajyam and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen.

Those who supported the government include 17 members of the PRP and seven member of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen.

The end of the debate was as bitter as the beginning. Using his right to reply, the leader of opposition N Chandrababu Naidu repeated his allegations that Kiran Kumar Reddy led Congress government had thoroughly failed in looking after the farmers and was also involved in corruption.

Earlier, Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy defending his government said that no-trust motion smacked of desperation of Chandrababu Naidu who was afraid of the good governance provided by the Congress.

Rejecting the criticism that his government was not helping farmers, the chief minister said that his government continued to provide free electricity to the farmers to reduce the cost of inputs and had also written off their loans of Rs 1,400 crore.

Moreover, he announced that the government will be providing interest free loans to every farmer up to Rs 1 lakh.