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ShareIf Mamata Banerjee got the bouquets, did Lalu Prasad get the brickbats?
The UPA's current and former railways ministers were a study in contrast the day the Union railway budget was presented. Banerjee sparkled in the spotlight, her constant companion, the frown, missing in a face wreathed with smiles. Lalu Prasad looked forlorn as he sat in one corner and pored over the budget document, scratching his head in puzzlement and wondering whether his mercurial successor had stolen a march on him. Or worse, whether she planned to unmask the Lalu success story in the white paper she is preparing on the state of the financial health of the Indian Railways.
Helping him to decode the subtext of Banerjee's budget speech were a couple of party aides, some friendly journos, and an opposition leader who took great delight in playing Narad Muni. This leader was the one who helpfully supplied Lalu Prasad with the one-liners he threw at Banerjee later in the day.
She has big shoes to fill, he told Lalu. The budget shows her complex. Lalu quickly pounced on the word and flaunted it by denouncing Banerjee's budget as "complex-ridden".
Slowly but surely, Lalu seems to be edging his way into the opposition camp. Or maybe the Congress is edging him out to make way for a new partner in Bihar.
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Arun Jaitley, the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has finally managed to recover his room in Parliament House from his predecessor, Jaswant Singh. Now, he has to refurbish it to his taste.
Jaswant Singh had done it up with antique furniture from Rajasthan, all of which he naturally took home with him. Jaitley has replaced that regal splendour with leather-upholstered couches and swivel chairs. He has also brought in expensive paintings from his private collection and plans to line what remains of the walls with bookcases and two flat-screen, wall-mounted television sets. And when this session ends, the flooring will be redone in parquet.
Jaitley may have wound up his law practice to concentrate on his new role in Parliament, but he clearly intends to retain the legal look in his new office.
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The media is a politician's favourite whipping boy. Jairam Ramesh was quick to telephone human resources development minister Kapil Sibal after media reports quoted him criticising the latter for jumping the gun with sweeping announcements about scrapping the Class X board exam. It's the media, he told Sibal, misquoting as usual. He never said anything like that, he insisted.
That's right. Blame it on the press. Sibal seems to have bought the line anyway. He and Ramesh looked quite cosy sharing the dais at the release of tiger expert Valmik Thapar's latest book a few days later.
Tailpiece
The latest to throw his hat in the ring for LK Advani's post as leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha is Shatrughan Sinha. "Main bhi hoon na," he told some reporters recently. It may have been a joke, but Sushma Swaraj, who is aspiring for the job, has taken it seriously. She is believed to have called for an explanation.
