Delhi Confidential: Aam & Khaas

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s annual ‘mango and chaat party’, a get-together of MPs and other leaders on the lawns of his official residence in the Capital, went international this year with the presence of a large number of diplomats, reflecting the MP’s recent engagements with foreign countries as part of the outreach programme post-Operation Sindoor. Another big difference from previous years was the absence of senior Congress leaders who used to be among prominent guests at the event. Some of Tharoor’s colleagues from Kerala — Benny Behanan, Hibi Eden and Dean Kuriakose (Congress), John Brittas and V Sivadasan (CPM) and N K Premachandran (RSP) — showed up at his party. Also present were Mahua Moitra (TMC) along with her husband and former MP Pinaki Misra, T Sumathy (DMK), Milind Deora (Shiv Sena-Shinde) with his wife Pooja Shetty, K Laxman and Rekha Sharma (BJP), among others.

At Loss Of Words

Amid the ongoing Hindi-Marathi row, senior BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had to face the ire of angry Maharashtra women MPs outside the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The women MPs, led by Congress’s Varsha Gaikwad, surrounded Dubey as he was coming out of the Lower House and shouted at him: “You are against Maharashtra? Who are you planning to thrash?” Dubey walked away calmly but the group followed him to the MPs’ canteen. Varsha again shouted at the BJP MP as he came out of the canteen. A visibly embarrassed Dubey was seen trying to pacify the Congress leader saying “it’s not like that…” The Maharashtra MPs were angry about Dubey’s reported remark that “those who beat up Hindi speakers would be thrashed by the public wherever they go”.