Mallya146;s Maal

Women MPs in Parliament, including those like the Begum of Rampur, Noor Banoo, who sport priceless heirlooms, are totally out dazzled by the...

Women MPs in Parliament, including those like the Begum of Rampur, Noor Banoo, who sport priceless heirlooms, are totally out dazzled by their male colleague from the Rajya Sabha, liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

On his left hand, Mallya sports a gold bracelet studded with diamonds, on his right, a watch sparkling with diamonds. Connoisseurs of exclusive jewellry identify it as a Swiss Wacheron, similar to the one auctioned in Monte Carlo last year at a price of over Rs one crore. Mallya8217;s super luxurious watch puts Lalit Suri8217;s Cartier and Amar Singh8217;s Rolex in the shade. To complete the effect, Mallya sports two enormous diamond rocks in his ears each of which must surely be more than three carats.

Flights of Fancy

Parliamentarians are even more awestruck by Vijay Mallya8217;s transport service than his jewellry. Mallya uses his personal Gulf Stream jet as freely as if it were a local taxi. He obligingly offers lifts to his fellow MPs to Mumbai and Bangalore. O

ne morning, Mallya flew off with Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Shukla to watch a cricket match in Jodhpur. Another day he flew down to Pune to attend the wedding of journalist Prabhu Chawla8217;s son. At the Pune airport, Mallya noticed a King Air which looked familiar. He discovered that a Karnataka minister had borrowed the aircraft from his fleet to fly separately from Bangalore to Pune.

On his return from the wedding, Mallya gave a lift to several MPs, including the Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Husain and Shipping Minister Ved Prakash Goyal, who are not in a position to commandeer government transport in this fashion.

Mallya plans to upgrade his personal fleet to include a Boeing 727 fitted with two bedrooms and a drawing room. He has been showing off photographs of the plane he has ordered to fellow MPs.

Happy Accident

Not many are aware that legendary jurist Nani Palkhivala joined the legal profession quite by chance. After he completed his MA in English literature from St Xavier8217;s College in Mumbai, Palkhivala was confident of being appointed to fill a vacancy for the post of an English lecturer at Bombay University.

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His career plans got unstuck when a Parsi girl student got the position instead. Palkhivala was at a loss over what to do next since most academic courses were closed by then. He joined the Government Law College largely because admissions were still open. English literature8217;s loss turned out to be the legal profession8217;s gain. Palkhivala used to take out the lady lecturer who got the job instead of him to dinner annually as a mark of gratitude.

Scoring Points

The bad vibes between hotel owner and Rajya Sabha MP Lalit Suri and his former partner Satish Sharma of the Congress are apparent. Recently, Suri abruptly walked away from a group of MPs standing in Parliament8217;s Central Hall as soon as Sharma joined the party.

The hotel magnate, incidentally, takes his parliamentary duties very seriously. He attends Parliament regularly during question hour and zero hour. Within a fortnight of Suri8217;s entry into the Parliament, he had delivered an impressive maiden speech on disinvestment and spoken for over 13 minutes. His friends joke that his activism in Parliament is in sharp contrast to Sharma8217;s non-participating since he never opens his mouth on any issue.

Sharma counters that though he may be keeping silent of late in Parliament, as a central minister he had to speak many times in the Lok Sabha and has nothing to prove. Sharma8217;s supporters were gleeful when Suri was snubbed by Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat last week when he raised a question regarding luxury tax for hotels. By convention, an MP does not raise questions which concern personal interest.

Noteworthy Practice

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The stakes were so high in the Gujarat elections that even minor Congress and BJP local leaders from New Delhi flocked to the state to help out. But the overburdened campaign managers had little use for their services since they were unknown quantities in Gujarat and many of them spent most of their time in their hotel rooms or badgering party offices to arrange meetings for them to address. Even a star campaigner like Shatrughan Sinha grumbled that he was kept twiddling his thumbs in Vadodara. The Gujarat BJP, in turn, complains that Sinha spent a day sulking because he was provided a car and not a helicopter!

Object of Suspicion

The Samajwadi Party team of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh and Salim Sherwani flew to Gujarat for campaigning. Sherwani parted from Mulayam and Amar in Ahmedabad claiming that they could cover more constituencies if they moved separately.

But reports from Ahmedabad in the areas where Sherwani canvassed say that his clear message was to defeat the BJP rather than support the SP. The SP8217;s suspicions about the divided loyalties of the former Congressman and UP industrialist were fuelled after Sherwani on his return was seen talking at length with Congress President Sonia Gandhi in Parliament.