On eve of Winter Session, MPs game for sports

Setting aside their rallies and roadshows, debates and dissent, a day before the Winter Session of Parliament begins, MPs are set to go up a...

Setting aside their rallies and roadshows, debates and dissent, a day before the Winter Session of Parliament begins, MPs are set to go up against each other in the arena of sports, pitting their skills in badminton, table-tennis and shooting.

While Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is set to ‘loop’ his opponents in the table-tennis tournament, Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has been practising hard to beat fellow Parliamentarians in the shotgun event, while Congress royalty and MP Rahul Gandhi is set to engage in a ‘battle of the shuttle’ with rival BJP MP Ananth Kumar in the badminton court.

The schedule on November 30 has been well chalked out, with participating MPs set to assemble near the Parliament House Gandhi Statue at 9.15 am — though not for a demonstration — before heading for the Siri Fort sports complex. Some light refreshment will also be thrown in. The events scheduled for the first day are badminton, table-tennis and shooting, with the events set to begin at 10 in the morning.

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Most MPs will be participating in the badminton event. Apart from Rahul Gandhi and Ananth Kumar, 12 others will be competing in the event including Ministers of State Shakeel Ahmad and E.V.S. Elangovan, MPs Jual Oram, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Akhilesh Das.

For the table-tennis event, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram may face tough competition from star cricketer-turned-commentator-turned-MP Navjot Singh Sidhu. Young sporting MPs—Naveen Jindal, Milind Deora and B.J. Panda—are flying in to compete with the Finance Minister and Sidhu.

Sources in the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry said that Ghulam Nabi Azad, who initiated the sports event by shooting off letters to fellow MPs, has been hard at practice. And so has been Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Santosh Mohan Dev, who, setting aside his preoccupation with PSUs, has set his eyes on winning the shooting crown.

Competing with Azad and Dev in the shotgun and pistol events are young Jitin Prasad and Sachin Pilot and hotelier-turned-Rajya Sabha MP Lalit Suri. The response from women MPs has been lukewarm, with only Lok Sabha MPs Karuna Shukla and Bimba Raikar participating in the badminton event.

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