New Delhi:  The keenly-watched debate over the No-Confidence Motion against the Narendra Modi Government is underway in the Lok Sabha. The debate that will last for close to 7 hours was kicked off by Jayadev Galla of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) that moved the No-Trust Motion.

Moments after the session began at 11 am, Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal walked out of the hall, bringing down the effective house strength to 514. PM Modi met BJP chief Amit Shah and Ministers Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari and Ananth Kumar shortly before the debate began. The government, its allies and the Opposition parties will put forward their view of the performance of the Narendra Modi Government.

While the Opposition will target the government over what it terms as “failures,” the BJP’s oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, has decided to stay away from the No-Trust vote and its lawmakers are not attending the debate.

The Congress, which does not have the numbers to upstage the BJP, has said that the No-Trust Motion is “much more than a show of numbers.” This morning, PM Modi tweeted calling for a “constructive, disruption-free” debate. “India will be watching us closely,” he said. PM Modi will be watched carefully as his speech today is widely seen as a launch pad for his campaign for the 2019 General Elections.

Opposition parties pressed for more time in order to debate the motion. Presiding over the proceedings, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced that the trust vote would be held at 6 pm today with both NDA and Opposition parties getting seven hours to debate the motion.

At the beginning of the discussion, the Speaker had offered to skip lunch to be able to meet the 6 pm target for the vote. But with speeches extending their prescribed time limits, the voting is expected to take place after 6 pm.