The government of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh won the vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday, July 23, guaranteeing the survival of the ruling coalition as well as the nuke deal with the United States for the time being. Earlier the Prime Minister was asked to give in his resignation by the opposition after three of its lawmakers alleged that they were offered bribe to refrain from voting. The parliamentary speaker Somnath Chatterjee declared that the government had clinched 275 votes as compared to the 256 of the opposition.

It was a heated and disorderly session on Tuesday. The debate had to be halted temporarily after members of the opposition started waving wads of money they alleged they had been offered to abstain by the government. The voting positioned the Congress, which is trying to push forward the nuke deal with US, against its former communist allies and opposition parties led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Since the vote was very close, a number of MPs had to be flown in, wheeled-in from hospitals or released from jails on a temporary basis as they had been put behind bars for crimes like murder and extortion. The winning of the confidence vote by the UPA government means a lot of things, first of which is that it will stay in power. It will also try to push forward its nuke deal with the United States.

If successful, this deal would bring US and India closer and also allow the latter the access to foreign civilian nuclear fuel and technology despite not singing the NPT and conducting nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. An Indian business lobby indicates that this could also pave the way to a $40 billion in investment over the next 15 years. But it is uncertain as to whether the PM will succeed in staying in power until elections scheduled by May, 2009, especially if the bribery scandal spirals and involves top government officials.