Leaders of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) exuded confidence Tuesday that they would comfortably win the trust vote, irrespective of the chaos that reigned inside the house during the debate on the motion.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said: "We are confident and we are comfortably home."

He told reporters that the Congress-led UPA were somewhere near 280 - eight more than the magic halfway mark of 272 in the house of 542.

Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal added with a glint in his eye: "You will know very soon."

Congress leaders were also upbeat that rebel MP Ambareesh, a popular actor in Karnataka, would vote with them.

"We will celebrate tonight," said a Congress MP from the southern state.

The two-day debate ends Tuesday with a vote on the trust motion that will decide the fate of the Manmohan Singh government, reduced to a minority over differences with the Left parties on the India-US civil nuclear deal.

Trust vote at 6 p.m.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has fixed 6 p.m. as the time for voting on the confidence motion moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is scheduled to sum up the Government's position on the debate.

Soon after Lok Sabha reconvened after lunch on Tuesday and listened to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Chatterjee said: "PM will speak at 5 p.m. and voting will be at 6 p.m."

The confidence motion was moved by Manmohan Singh on Monday.

Rahul pitches for energy security in emotive speech

His speech was rudely cut short by the opposition but Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Tuesday still managed to make his pitch for energy security through the stories of two poverty-stricken women he had met in Vidarbha.

Participating in the debate on the trust vote that will decide the fate of the Manmohan Singh government, an earnest, confident Gandhi started by saying that he was speaking not as the member of a political party but as an Indian. The disruptions started as soon as he began his speech, finally forcing a harried Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to adjourn the session till 2 p.m.

"I was thinking about what I want to say and I came to a simple conclusion. I decided that it is important at this point not to speak as a member of a political party but to speak as an Indian," began Gandhi, clad in his usual white kurta-pyjama.

"Yesterday, I was thinking why we are meeting here. Why this house needs to meet. I came to the conclusion that we are meeting because there is a serious problem in India and the problem is our energy security," he said.

When the opposition stood up to protest, an unfazed Gandhi said: "I request everybody to give me 10 minutes and to listen to me for 10 minutes."

He didn't get the 10 minutes and didn't once mention the India-US civil nuclear deal in the few minutes that he had before the interruptions, but managed to tell the stories of Sasikala and Kalavati in drought hit Vidarbha and their need for power.