haryana-congress-s-no-confidence-motion-against-khattar-falls-flat

The Congress brought a no-confidence motion against the Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday. However, after a four-hour long debate, Congress MLAs walked out of the house after facing defeat.

 

It was expected that the motion would fall as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Jannayak Janta Party alliance has 51 MLAs and support of at least six Independents and one Haryana Lokhit Party MLA in the 90-member House.

 

Notably, since the Congress legislators decided to walk out of the House before the speaker could put the question and invite MLAs who were in favour or against the motion, the no-trust vote became an insignificant formality.

 

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that since the CM did not respond to the issues raised by party MLAs during the debate on the motion, there was no point carrying on.

 

This was the second no-trust vote brought by the Congress since March 2021. The BJP-JJP government had easily sailed through the 2021 no-confidence motion getting the votes of 55 MLAs out of 87 present and voting.

 

Khattar said when a no-confidence motion was brought in 2021, he had said that the opposition can bring as many motions as they want.

 

Taking a dig at the Opposition, Khattar said: “The debate around the no-confidence motion brought in 2021 had some substance. But, this time, the discussion was baseless.”

 

Deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala said that it was known that the Congress MLAs will leave from the House after stating their points. As the chief minister asked the speaker to reject the no-confidence motion, the speaker clarified that it will be done after seeking unanimous voting from the MLAs.

 

On Friday, Khattar presented the budget for financial year 2024-25 with an allocation of Rs 1.89 lakh crore, more than 11 per cent from the previous fiscal.

 

Khattar, who also holds the finance portfolio, said, “For 2024-25, I propose a budget of Rs 1,89,876.61 crore which is 11.37 per cent more than Rs 1,70,490.84 crore (revised estimates) of 2023-24.” It is the fifth budget of the BJP-JJP government.