While he did not attend the swearing-in ceremony of PM Narendra Modi, actor Amitabh Bachchan seems to be a keen follower of BJP leaders. Bachchan’s Twitter handle follows several BJP leaders while not a single Congress leader figures among the 920 he follows. Interestingly, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad appears to be the latest addition to Bachchan’s list of those he follows. DOUBLE CHECK FORMER defence minister A K Antony was known for his careful work culture, with babus being told to be specially careful with the paperwork to ensure that nothing was out of order. It turns out that not only did the babus take special care, Antony also had a dedicated staffer in his office to go through every line in the files that were signed by him. This double check was his personal way to keep things clean on paper. TAKING POTSHOTS During the discussion on the motion of thanks on the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, JD(U)’s K C Tyagi took potshots at the NDA government but conceded some praise for PM Narendra Modi for choosing to speak in Hindi to foreign diplomats and pointed fingers at P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia for preferring English most of the time. In the Chair was P J Kurien, who quickly intervened in Hindi saying — “Tyagiji, main bhi Hindi me bol raha hun, samapt kijiye (I am also speaking in Hindi, please finish your speech).” If the Chair elicited laughter from the House, Sitaram Yechury’s attack against the new government invited some smirks. Reacting to Leader of the House Arun Jaitley holding out on his party’s massive electoral victory, Yechury said the discussion on elections reminds him of the Hollywood movie The Hangover. LIGHT MOMENTS BJP MP from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath’s speech in the motion of thanks brought in some light moments on Tuesday as he took a dig at opposition MPs. As he was praising the piety of the Ganga water, he said irrespective of whether a person is religious or not, he is likely to have the holy gangajal in his house, even if that person is RJD MP Pappu Yadav. As the House erupted in laughter, Pappu Yadav waved his hand to indicate that he does not keep Ganga water in his house. Moments later while praising Health Minister Harsha Vardhan, Adityanath said Vardhan takes meetings early morning, when people like Pappu Yadav sleep, to which Pappu Yadav took exception and said that he wakes up at 6 am. A little later, while mentioning farmers’ plight during the UPA regime, Adityanath himself broke into laughter as he said that when farmers were committing suicide, Deepender Singh Hooda was busy growing 18-inch potatoes in his farms — a reference to Hooda’s speech during the FDI in retail debate last year to which Sushma Swaraj had said that only bottle gourd could be of that size and not potato.
