Delhi Confidential: An emotional day for Anand Sharma, who retired as MP this month

Panel praise: It was an emotional day for senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Monday as he chaired his last meeting as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs. Sharma, the Congress deputy leader in Rajya Sabha, is retiring as MP this month. Members cutting across party lines praised his bipartisan approach and impartiality in conducting the meetings of the panel. It will now be interesting to see who will succeed Sharma as the deputy leader of the party in the House. With the Congress’s strength in Rajya Sabha coming down, it will also be interesting to see whether the government will give the party Chairmanships of two Standing Committees. The party now heads the Standing Committees on Home and Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

Slip of tongue: A lawyer’s reference to political minorities during a hearing on identifying minorities at state level had Justice S K Kaul and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta scratching their heads on Monday. “What is political minority?,” SG Mehta asked the counsel. “What is political minority? I couldn’t understand,” said Justice Kaul. The counsel was quick to realise his slip of tongue and clarified that he only meant to say religious and linguistic minorities.

Speech slot: As he rose to speak in Rajya Sabha on Monday to debate the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill, RJD’s Manoj Jha said it was “like a beautiful dream” for his speech to be slotted between the speech of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and that of current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. He said it was an honour to be discussing the Bills in the presence of both experts.