Column

The star attraction at last week’s AICC session was the Café Coffee Day outlet hidden in a small room in Talkatora Stadium. It was the cynosure of Congress eyes because that’s where Rahul Gandhi would escape when the sights and sounds of the tamasha started grating.

One count put the number of trips he made at nine. A deft dash from the dais, a long swallow of hot coffee, maybe a bite or two of a muffin and a big sigh of relief. This was Rahul’s time-out from the chamchagiri to which he was subjected from big and small leaders, all vying to win a smile or a nod from the heir apparent. The break also gave him an opportunity to rehearse his first major address at an AICC meet. A Peeping Tom, who managed to peer through the security cordon around the room, saw him practising the speech, which was half in chaste Hindi and half in English. As they say, a lot can happen over coffee.

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Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi made sure that the BJP or RSS leadership had no say in the choice of candidates for the forthcoming assembly elections. Instead of putting up a panel of names for each seat, as is the norm, he stunned the party’s election committee with a fait accompli by proposing only one name per constituency.

BJP president Rajnath Singh weakly tried to question some of his choices but Modi refused pointblank to consider any changes. Advani said nothing. It was the shortest meeting of the election committee in the BJP’s history. No fireworks, no debate. Just meek acceptance of Modi’s iron rule. He also bypassed the customary courtesy of sending the nomination list to the RSS for clearance. It’s well and truly become the Modi Janata Party in Gujarat.

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Parliament keeps minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi so much on his toes that he’s given up his daily exercise when it’s in session. His normal routine is to do half an hour of yoga every morning, followed by ten minutes of football in the huge lawns of his Lutyen’s bungalow. In the evening, he dribbles the ball with his young son, who he hopes will grow up to be a soccer champ.

But when Parliament opens, he’s too busy dousing political fires to work out. No sweat, he claims. He’s kept in shape by all the running around he has to do, from the Lok Sabha to the Rajya Sabha, from his room to Pranab Mukherjee’s room, from the Congress office to the rooms of senior opposition leaders. He just speed walks through Parliament’s long corridors for his daily dose of exercise.

TAILPIECE
There was much tea and sympathy for minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma when the winter session of Parliament opened. They had all heard of his trauma on Diwali night when his neighbour, Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh, almost smoked him out of his house. Apparently, the Singh household rocked the VIP area for two days with firecrackers in all colours, shapes and noise levels in a sound and smoke carnival that went on till the wee hours of the morning. Sharma bore the brunt of it since they share a compound wall and he was choking by midnight on Diwali in an asthmatic attack. He had to use his inhaler to breathe again.

Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net