Data indicates that since 1952, there have been 27 No-Confidence motions and 12 Confidence motions, excluding the current one where a discussion is yet to take place. The most time spent in a No-Confidence motion was during the one against Lal Bahadur Shastri’s government. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla accepted the ‘No-Confidence’ motion against the government moved by the Opposition on 26 July 2023. This motion was brought to the House by Deputy leader of the Congress Party in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi amidst the opposition’s ongoing protests demanding a statement on the situation in Manipur from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While the motion was accepted, the speaker is yet to confirm the time and date of the debate and vote. This would be the first no-confidence motion against the government during the current 17 Lok Sabha term. What is a No-Confidence motion? In a parliamentary democracy, a government can be in power only if it enjoys the majority and confidence of the directly elected house i.e., Lok Sabha in the case of India. The rules of Lok Sabha allow for a motion of no-confidence, where-in any MP can garner the support of 50 MPs and introduce a motion of no-confidence against the government. A discussion on the motion takes place, in which those supporting the motion highlight the concerns against the government, to which the treasury benches respond. This is followed by a vote. In case the motion carries, the government is required to resign. While the current NDA government has a more than comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha, a no-confidence motion has historically been used as a strategic tool to force a discussion on a certain issue or topic. Our detailed explainer on ‘No-Confidence motion’ can be read here. In contrast, the Government also has the option of introducing a ‘Confidence Motion”. A Motion of confidence is a motion of support proposed by a government in a parliament or other assembly of elected representatives to give members of parliament a chance to register their confidence in a government. In this story, we look at the data related to both these motions. The compiled dataset with details on Confidence and No-Confidence Motions discussed in the Lok Sabha is available on Dataful. Highest number of No-confidence Motions during 3rd & 4th Lok Sabha terms The first no-confidence motion was moved during the 3 Lok Sabha. Acharya Kripalani moved this motion after Sino-India War when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister. The motion garnered 62 votes in favour and 347 votes against and hence, it did not go through. There were 5 other No-confidence motions during the 3rd Lok Sabha Term. Even during the next Lok Sabha term, there were 6 no-confidence motions. Overall, there have been 27 No-Confidence motions so far. The number of no-confidence motions has reduced in the more recent Lok-Sabha terms. Apart from the no-confidence motion, there were 12 instances where-in the Government sought the confidence of the house through a confidence motion. The first confidence motion was moved by then Prime Minister Charan Singh during the 6th Lok Sabha. However, this motion was listed but not moved because Charan Singh has tendered his resignation. The next confidence motion was during the 9 Lok Sabha by V.P. Singh, which was adopted. However, V.P. Singh lost the next confidence motion moved in the next year. His successor Chandra Sekhar moved a confidence motion, which he won by securing 280 votes. Indira Gandhi led Government faced the most No-Confidence motions 8 out of the 14 Prime Ministers of India have faced a no-confidence motion during their tenure. More than half of the total no-confidence motions were moved against Indira Gandhi’s government who faced 15 of the 27 no-confidence motions. However, none of these 15 motions were successful, with all of them being defeated. Only in case of the Morarji Desai, did the no-confidence motion led to his resignation. In fact, he won a no-confidence motion earlier. After Indira Gandhi, the next highest number of no-confidence motions were against Lal Bahadur Shastri and P.V. Narasimha Rao with 3 each. Out of the 12 Confidence motions moved by the Prime Ministers, the highest was Atal Bihar Vajpayee with 3. The first of these motions was not put to vote as he resigned after being unable to gather the required support to form a government. His second motion in his next tenure was successful but in the third confidence motion, he lost by just one vote. V.P. Singh was the first PM to lose a confidence vote. The only other PM apart from these two who lost a confidence vote was H.D. Deve Gowda.