Prime Ministers who lost no-confidence motion

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday admitted a no-confidence motion moved by Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi against the Narendra Modi government after a head count of over 50 MPs as required under the rules.

The alliance of 26 opposition parties, I.N.D.I.A, had decided to move the motion in order to make Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak in the Parliament on the Manipur violence, senior leaders of the front said.

Although the no-confidence motion by opposition parties is bound to fail the numbers test, opposition parties argue that they will win the battle of perception by cornering the government on the Manipur issue during the debate.

They contend that it is also a strategy to make the Prime Minister speak in the Parliament on the crucial matter even as the government has been insisting that Union Home Minister Amit Shah will reply to the debate on the Manipur situation.

The no-confidence motion has been passed 27 times in the past, with Indira Gandhi being subject to the motion 15 times. However, only three Prime Ministers have lost the motion till date:

1. Vishvanath Pratap Singh
VP Singh was a member of the Janata Dal party and held the office of Prime Minister from 1989 to 1990. He headed a coalition government called the National Front, which was supported by the BJP. His government lost a no-confidence motion after the BJP had withdrawn its support over the Ram Temple issue. He lost the motion by 142 votes to 346 votes.

2. HD Deve Gowda
Deve Gowda of Janata Dal became the Prime Minister in 1996, with a coalition known as the United Front with the support of Congress. However, Congress withdrew their support a few months later and Gowda's government had to face a no-confidence motion. The motion was moved on April 11, 1997, and the Gowda government could garner only 158 votes, thus losing the motion.

3. Atal Bihari Vajpayee
The BJP stalwart, who first became the Prime Minister in 1996, had faced no-confidence motion twice. Vajpayee had lost the first no-trust motion by just a single vote in 1999 after Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK withdrew support. He had again faced a no-confidence motion in 2003, which he won by an overwhelming majority.

(With PTI inputs)