Akali Dal, TRS to vote against govt

The two-member National Conference (NC) is meeting in Srinagar tomorrow to decide on its stand as battle lines were being drawn and the Left parties roped in BSP, which has 17 MPs, to their side in the campaign against the government.

Even as the three-member JD(S) headed by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda is yet to take a stand, its parliamentary party chief M P Veerendra Kumar said he would vote against the confidence motion.

 

Akali Dal, an NDA constituent whose stand in the confidence vote in Lok Sabha was a subject of speculation, today made it clear that it will oppose the UPA government dismissing speculation that it would support the Congress because of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Sikh origin. The Akali Dal has eight MPs.

"Don't drag me into non-issues like the prime minister being a Sikh," Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal told reporters in Jalandhar, adding SAD was a constituent of the NDA and would follow the stand taken by it.

In Hyderabad, former Congress ally TRS, which has three members, said it will vote against the government unless a resolution is passed by the Lok Sabha in favour of creating a new state.

JMM, a UPA constituent which has 5 MPs, preferred to keep the cards close to its chest, saying it would decide on the issue on July 19.