Parliament no-confidence motion debate day 3: PM Modi to reply in Lok Sabha today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today reply to the no-confidence motion moved against his government by the Opposition INDIA bloc. His reply will come after three days of intense debate on the motion, which began on August 8 and will end today evening. PM Modi will speak at 4 pm in the Parliament.

The no-trust motion was moved after a meeting held by opposition MPs of the INDIA bloc and was accepted by speaker Om Birla.  At the meeting of the opposition leaders, it was decided after weighing various options that this would be an effective way to compel the government to initiate a discussion on the Manipur issue.

Over the last two days, however, MPs have addressed a variety of issues besides the ongoing violence in Manipur.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday tore into the Narendra Modi government over its handling of the violence in Manipur, alleging the politics of the BJP has "harmed Bharat Mata" in the state, drawing a fiery response from Union ministers Amit Shah and Smriti Irani.

"In Manipur, they (BJP) have harmed Hindustan. Their politics has harmed Hindustan in Manipur," Gandhi alleged.

Hours after Gandhi's attack on the PM for not visiting the strife-torn Manipur, Shah hit back and spoke on a range of issues including on the several scams during the tenure of the Congress-led UPA and urged the opposition not to politicise the ethnic violence in Manipur that erupted on May 3.

"I agree with the opposition that there is a cycle of violence in Manipur ... Nobody can support such incidents. Whatever happened is shameful, but to politicise those events is even more shameful," Shah said in his nearly two-hour long intervention.

He also questioned the intention of leaking the video of two women being paraded naked in Manipur just ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament which began on July 20. The video of the incident which happened on May 4 surfaced on July 19.

PM Modi is scheduled to reply to the debate on August 10 which will be followed by voting -- the outcome of which is already known with the numbers comfortably stacked in favour of the government.

Over 150 people have been killed, and thousands have been rendered homeless in the ethnic riots in the northeastern state.

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