Indian government narrowly wins support for U.S. nuclear cooperation deal
Wild political theater precedes the confidence vote that advances an agreement to allow companies to sell nuclear technology to India in exchange for international inspections.
NEW DELHI -- The Indian government won a confidence vote by a slim margin today, keeping alive the possibility that a beleaguered nuclear cooperation deal with the U.S. would continue to move forward.
After two days of heated debate, lawmakers voted 275 to 256 in support of the government in what turned out to be not only a referendum on the nuclear accord but also, in the eyes of many, an extraordinary display of backroom deal-making, alleged chicanery and political theater. Both sides pulled out all stops in the run-up to the cliffhanger vote. Political enemies on the left and right banded together in unlikely alliances. The government renamed an airport after the father of one lawmaker it was trying to woo. Members of parliament in prison for murder were temporarily released to cast their ballots, as were others sick in the hospital.
In a remarkable scene, three opposition lawmakers brought proceedings to a halt shortly before the vote after waving wads of cash that they said had been offered to them as bribes for abstaining. Critics described it as a last-minute maneuver by the opposition to derail the vote once it became clear that their drive to topple the government would fall short.
"Black day for Indian politics," one of India's news channels flashed across the screen. "Parliament's shame," declared another.
The government's slim victory in the confidence vote averts the likelihood of early elections, which are now due by May 2009. But the coalition headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finds its credibility and scope for action weakened at a time of rising fuel and food prices and a slowdown in economic growth.
Its one relief is that the nuclear deal with the U.S., already three years in the making, can move closer to final approval after being mired in months of delays and partisan bickering. The unprecedented agreement would allow American companies to sell nuclear technology to India in exchange for the opening of Indian civilian reactors to international inspections.
The mild-mannered, academic-minded Singh insists that such an accord is necessary to help meet India's booming energy demands. But the leftist parties that had propped up Singh's ruling coalition decided earlier this month to withdraw their support because of the deal, which they say would bind Indian foreign policy too tightly to the U.S.
That paved the way for Tuesday's confidence vote.
"It is important at this point not to speak as the member of a political party but to speak as an Indian," lawmaker Rahul Gandhi, whose mother leads Singh's Congress Party, said in parliament in support of the nuclear deal. "There is a serious problem in India and the problem is our energy security."
But legislator Basudev Acharya, from one of India's communist parties, sharply disagreed.
"We want a good relation with America, but there is a difference between a good relation and a strategic relation," Acharya said.
henry.chu@latimes.com
