The Lok Sabha will witness the 26th no-confidence motion in its history when the Congress, whose governments faced 23 such motions, pushes one against the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government on Monday.

Barring one, which remained inconclusive, all the no-trust motions in the past were negatived.

A record 15 such motions were moved against governments led by Indira Gandhi, mother-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, who has now tabled the motion against the Vajpayee government.

There were three each against the governments headed by Lal Bahadur Shastri and P V Narasimha Rao.
 
Interestingly, one of the motions against Indira Gandhi was brought in March 1967 by Vajpayee. He also moved a no-confidence motion against Rao.

The only non-Congress government against which no-confidence motions were brought twice was led by Morarji Desai, who headed the Janata Party regime.

One of these, brought by Congress leader Y B Chavan in July 1979, led to the resignation of the prime minister even before it could be voted upon.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now his deputy, Lal Kishenchand Advani, were ministers in the Desai government.

The first no-confidence motion in the history of Lok Sabha was moved by socialist Acharya Kriplani against Jawahar
Lal Nehru in August of 1963.

The last was against the Narasimha Rao government in July, 1993, moved by Ajay Mukhopadhyay of the Communist Party of India. It was a close shave for Rao. He survived by just 14 votes.

Of the 25 such motions so far, only four were negatived by a voice vote, while the rest were decided by a division of vote.

In around ten confidence motions moved in the House, the Vajpayee government faced one and fell by one vote in April, 1999. His 13-day government also fell in 1996, but he had then announced his decision to resign and the confidence motion was not put to vote.

On Monday, the Vajpayee government is unlikely to face any such eventuality. With the support of around 325 members, it looks comfortably placed.

The no-confidence motion: Complete coverage