To de-stress tired MPs, Govt has a plan: sack race, lemon in spoon

In a letter sent to the MPs on October 18, Azad says that on weekends when Parliament is in session, he will organise sporting events. He has generously offered MPs a platter of 24 events to choose from—each must pick three.

Some — like golf and cricket — are routine while others like Hitting the Post with Hockey Stick (Men/Women) and Lemon in Spoon Race (Ladies only) are more imaginative.

He is also organising shooting events — both pistol and shotgun — though one senior MP remarked that some Parliamentarians from the RJD and the Samajwadi Party might enjoy an unfair advantage in these. But, as the minister points out in his letter to other MPs, he only wants to promote team spirit.

Some excerpts from his letter dated October 18:

‘‘Members of Parliament, you will agree, are a harried and harassed lot. But, coming to think of it, we were not always so…Several of us were engaged in various types of professional activities, such as law, teaching, medicine, engineering, journalism and so on. Others were authors, poets, actors, and, if nothing else, at least bathroom singers.

‘‘And indeed we played games with our siblings and friends. It is perhaps our inherent sportsman spirit which made us enter politics. But things are different now…

‘‘Friends, we need to be not only physically present in the Parliament, but also physically fit to manage the stresses and strains of being effective parliamentarians. We need to inculcate the spirit of sportsmanship in order to make the Parliament function in the true democratic tradition.

‘‘The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs which, among other things, is responsible for the welfare of Members of Parliament, has decided to organise sports events to bring you together in the true democratic spirit to engage with each other in a different arena.