Truant MPs
Only four Congress members were present in the Rajya Sabha when Chairman Hamid Ansari called out, at 2.15 p.m., for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce his Council of Ministers to the members on Tuesday. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the lone Congress member on the front benches. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who entered the House just a few moments after it was called to order, missed his turn as his was among the first names to be called out.
Shipping and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari made it just in time. Minister of State for Heavy Industries Pon Radhakrishnan was absent. The Congress numbers had swelled by the time the Ministers’ introduction formality reached its conclusion. — Gargi Parsai
Rudy heckled
When BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy rose to move the motion of thanks on the President’s address in the Lok Sabha on behalf of the party on Tuesday, he was heckled. It was the Trinamool Congress that led the barrage of gibes. Trinamool MPs goaded Mr. Rudy as he focussed, in the early part of his speech, on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP’s win in the Lok Sabha polls.
Seeing that the Trinamool MPs were in an unrelenting mood, Mr. Rudy said: “The West Bengal Chief Minister is like a sister to me. This evening you are going to be reprimanded for troubling me.”
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who stood up to second Mr. Rudy’s motion, was taunted by the Trinamool MPs for changing sides frequently and also for bringing his son Chirag Paswan into politics. The Lok Janshakti Party leader shot back: “Why don’t you say the same for Sonia Gandhi getting her son [Rahul Gandhi] here? You only have a problem with a Dalit bringing his son [into politics]!” Both the Gandhis were in the House at that time. — Anita Joshua
Room for Advani
Room number 4 in Parliament House was the cynosure of all journalists’ eyes on Tuesday with the nameplate of BJP patriarch L.K. Advani resurfacing after a week. For 10 years, since the National Democratic Alliance was voted out of power in 2004, the left side of the door of room number 4 carried the name of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was the chairperson of the NDA, and the right side carried the name of Mr. Advani in his capacity as the acting chairperson of the alliance. What added to the mystery of the disappearance of Mr. Advani’s nameplate was the reluctance of NDA parliamentary managers to explain what could have happened, particularly when the allotment of rooms after change of government is yet to be done. There was some degree of clarity on Tuesday as the reinstated nameplate carried only Mr. Advani’s name and not any designation.
On May 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected the Leader of the BJP parliamentary party. Immediately after that, the NDA parliamentary party endorsed the BJP decision but there was no exercise to elect the alliance leader. Till date, it is not clear if the NDA will have a leader or be content with a convenor. — B. Muralidhar Reddy
Rare bonhomie
There may have been bad blood between the Congress and the Trinamool in the last Lok Sabha, but on Tuesday, during the discussion following the President’s address to the joint session of Parliament, there were signs of bonhomie between the two parties on the floor of the Lower House. When Congress Leader in the House Mallikarjuna Kharge was challenged by the BJP’s Arjun Meghwal on a point of order, it was the Trinamool’s Saugata Roy who sprang to his feet in Mr. Kharge’s defence.
Meanwhile, Trinamool MPs were spotted outside the House telling their partymen to rush into the House as Mr. Kharge was making a great speech and they needed to give him moral support.
Is the rise of the BJP in West Bengal, where it polled around 16 per cent of the votes in the recent general elections, the reason for this show of solidarity?
