Lucknownama

Chatterati corps
Before the recent reorganisation,the state BJP had Hriday Narain Dixit as its sole spokesman. Now there are five — Satyadev Singh,Hardwar Dubey,Vijay Bahadur Pathak,Rajendra Tiwari and Hriday Narain Dixit. Since each has to justify his existence,there is a rush towards the evening to issue statements for the media. Add to them senior party leader Satyadev Singh who may have refused to become a spokesman,but nevertheless,keeps making his own contribution. Maybe the BJP has not heard that old saying about what too many cooks in one place can do.

Strategic pardon?
Soon after the farmers’ unrest broke out,the government appointed R Nayak as District Magistrate of Aligarh. For those not in the know,Nayak was one of the officers who were suspended about a year ago for their role in the alleged irregular allotment of hotel plots in Noida during the Mulayam Singh Yadav regime. Only a few days ago,the state government had revoked Nayak’s suspension. If Nayak is the best officer to deal with such a difficult situation,why was he kept under suspension for so long?

No stopping this MP
Bahujan Samaj Party’s newly elected Rajya Sabha MP Narendra Kumar Kashyap created quite a flutter in the House when he rose to deliver his maiden speech in Parliament last week. Participating in a discussion on the Land Port Authority of India Bill,Kashyap — fully aware that maiden speeches,as a convention,are not interrupted or cut short — decided to hold forth on every subject under the sun,including the 26/11 attacks,the IC-814 hijack,and even the recent shoe-throwing incident on Omar Abdullah. As he went on and on,a visibly irritated Rajneeti Prasad of the RJD got up and said,“Sir,hum is Bill ka poora samarthan kartey hain,namastey evam pranaam (We support this Bill. Thanks and regards).” Prasad then walked out of the House. While the Chair kept reminding him that he had to stick to the subject even if it was a maiden speech,Kashyap clearly was in no mood to relent. An exasperated Deputy Chairman had to finally show the rulebook to Kashyap and tell him any member who persisted on irrelevance,deviation or repetition of either his own or other MPs’ arguments could be directed to discontinue his speech. Allotted only 11 minutes,it was only after 42 minutes of non-stop speaking that Kashyap finally decided to stop. Rahman Khan could be heard saying that the House will have to take a second look on the convention of not interrupting maiden speeches.

Party keeps Rahul busy
ALTHOUGH Rahul Gandhi was quite active in the last Lok Sabha,in the current one,the Amethi MP has not participated in any debate or asked any questions or even moved any private members’ Bill,as per the Lok Sabha’s official website. Congress leaders attribute it to his increasing involvement in party affairs. With internal elections in the Youth Congress and the NSUI almost on auto-pilot mode,Rahul has moved on to holding consultations with MPs and MLAs more regularly and taking interest in organisational affairs in states as well. He missed the last two Congress Working Committee meetings because he was in Mumbai at the time of the first one and in Leh when the CWC met last. Incidentally,Rahul’s close aide and Alwar MP Jitendra Singh also seems to be emulating his boss. Although he does attend the House regularly,he has also not asked any questions/ supplementary questions or moved any private members’ Bill. As for debates,Singh’s maiden and only participation was his brief statement on the need to construct railway line linking Khajuraho,Panna and Satna under Rule 377. That,too,was laid on the table of the House.