August 20, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 21, 1424

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NEW DELHI, Aug 19: Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee easily defeated a no-confidence motion against his government on Tuesday. He got 312 votes against the opposition’s 186 votes.

Mr Vajpayee told the Lok Sabha at the end of a marathon two-day debate that he did not see any good reason for the motion to be moved against his government.

He disagreed with the charge that his government had changed or surrendered the country’s foreign policy. He said even the Congress party would have carried out the 1998 nuclear tests as it had been planning to carry them out.

Opposition leader Sonia Gandhi, who had moved the motion on Monday, said at the end of the debate that the government had not replied to any of the charges.

Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyer, the last person to speak before Mr Vajpayee, accused the government of exaggerating the benefits of its nuclear prowess. He said the Kargil incident had happened despite the nuclear tests.

Chinese troops too had walked into Indian territory despite the tests.