  Suppressing monopoles and vortices by introducing large chemical potentials
for them in the Wilson action for the SU(2) lattice gauge theory, we study the
nature of the deconfinement phase transition on N_\sigma^3 \times N_\tau
lattices for N_\tau = 4, 5, 6 and 8 and N_\sigma = 8--16. Using finite size
scaling theory, we obtain \omega = 1.93 \pm 0.03 for N_\tau = 4, in excellent
agreement with universality. Corresponding determinations for the N_\tau = 5
and 6 lattices are also found to be in very good agreement with this estimate.
The critical couplings for N_\tau= 4, 5, 6 and 8 lattices exhibit large shifts
towards the strong coupling region when compared with the usual Wilson action,
and suggest a lot smoother approach to scaling.
