About 60 Lok Sabha members, including some Union ministers of the ruling UPA and supporting parties, on Monday remained absent during the motion of thanks on the President’s address.
Those excluded were Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul Congress (19) and the BSP (21).
The strength of the Congress-led UPA consisting of 16 parties plus four Independents in the Lower House, is 277.
But the Trinamul Congress (19) stayed away from voting on the National Counter-Terrorism Centre issue. This has brought down the UPA’s numbers to 258.
The Samajwadi Party (22), the BSP (21), the RJD (4) and the JD-S (3) have been backing the Manmohan Singh government from outside. Their total strength in the House is 50. But the BSP members walked out during the voting. This brought down their numbers to 29.
The UPA and supporting parties total strength in the Lok Sabha is 327. Their numbers, minus the Trinamul Congress and the BSP, should have been 287 on Monday. But in reality, only 227 members (UPA minus Trinamul and supporting parties minus Bahujan Samaj Party) voted against the Opposition members amendments.
According to the parliamentary sources, 60 members remained absent despite the three-line whip. And the number of absent Union ministers other than the Trinamul, is about half a dozen.
About 14 to 15 Congress MPs did not come for the voting.
Among them, three to four MPs had informed the parliamentary affairs ministry about their inability to attend the House on Monday.