Gandhinagar: Not a single no-confidence motion moved in Gujarat assembly has brought down a govt, with assembly records showing that 30 such motions were moved from 1963 to date.Data compiled by the Gujarat assembly secretariat shows that while 25 no-confidence motions were moved in the House between 1960 and 1998, only five were moved over the past 28 years of uninterrupted BJP rule.The first such motion was moved in Sept 1963.Over the following four decades, opposition members repeatedly sought to test govt’s majority through no-confidence motions.The pattern continued through the 1970s and subsequent decades. Several motions were either rejected by the House after voting or were not admitted for discussion.Some no-confidence motions did not even reach the voting stage: reasons for the motions not proceeding include not getting permission from the speaker or time being limited.Historian Rizwan Kadri said that no-confidence motions are often moved without conviction or sufficient grounds. “In Gujarat’s electoral history, one party has enjoyed an absolute majority for much of the time, and it is not surprising that no motion succeeded,” he said.Catalogue of defeats:*The no-confidence motion was moved twice during the chief ministerial tenure of Balvantrai Mehta, in 1963 and 1964. The motions were defeated by majority vote*During the tenure of Gujarat’s third CM, Hitendra Desai, no-confidence motions were defeated twice in 1969*When Madhavsinh Solanki was CM, a no-confidence motion was defeated in March 1977 by 0 votes in favour and 92 against, amid a walkout by opposition*A no-confidence motion against Keshubhai Patel govt was defeated by 54 votes in favour and 117 against in July 1998
