How does India Inc view the trust vote?

The Manmohan Singh government has won the trust vote. The Government got 275 votes in favour, 256 against and at least 10 abstentions.

It was capital chaos in the Parliament today as bribery charges took centrestage earlier in the day. As the trust vote debate was underway in the Lok Sabha at around 4 pm, 3 BJP MPs dramatically rushed to the well and placed bags carrying bundles of currency notes in front of the speaker. The MPs waved the wads of currency alleging it was the money offered to them by a Samajwadi Party leader to either vote for the confidence motion or abstain. The 3 MPs, who have levelled the allegations are Ashok Argal from Morena and Faggan Singh Kulaste from Mandla, Madhya Pradesh and Mahavir Bhagora from Salumber, Rajasthan. The speaker called an all party meet to discuss these allegations. But a final decision has not been taken so far.

But how will these allegations of horse-trading impact the image of India going forward? And, what does India Inc expect as road ahead on the reforms front?

Arun Bharat Ram, Chairman, SRF Former President, CII hopes that as the burden of the Left has been removed from the government, it is going to take quick measures on the legislative areas. He feels that this may be a little more difficult unless they can amend their relationship with the BJP particularly because a lot of the reforms are common to both the Congress and the BJP.

He feels that the government should make a task force to monitor the progress of improving infrastructure on a quarterly basis as this would give very quick results and could be immensely helpful to the government at the time of elections.

Sunil Kant Munjal, MD and CEO, Hero Corporate Services, said that as any democracy, we do need to debate and have these votes. He feels that since the government has won the vote today and with a better margin than most people expected, people hope that the government will push forth many issues that have been pending. However, he said, "The lead-up and the method the parties used to try to gather support clearly shakes up confidence."

Hemant Luthra, President - Systech, M&M is unsure whether the nuclear deal will win votes for the UPA, but he feels that if the government can institute some reforms and if the oil prices start to come down and show some signs of reducing the fiscal deficit and bringing inflation down then it will get votes.