Walkover for Vajpayee in first face-off with Sonia

And while Sonia sat mum, agitated Congress MPs rushed to her defence by hooting and jeering at Vajpayee, prompting Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan to remind them angrily that the treasury benches had listened in pin drop silence to the Congress president.

Ironically, Sonia’s speech had more to offer by way of sheer politics as she played to the Congress party’s pro-minority, pro-poor image, scolding Vajpayee like a school marm for his Government’s various failings.

The Prime Minister, on the other hand, had nothing substantive to say but covered up the lack of content with wit and humour. A discerning MP laughed afterwards, “Sonia did well by her standards and the Prime Minister did poorly by his standards.”

Nevertheless, the impression that Vajpayee had got the better of Sonia was unshakable after she failed to respond to the challenges he so deftly threw at her one by one. The first was a direct dare to clear the confusion on what she actually said to US President Bill Clinton on the question of a minimum nuclear deterrent. As even hecklers like Mani Shankar Aiyar sat in embarrassed silence over what has become a touchy subject in the Congress, Vajpayee sardonically offered to drop the subject.

In a naive but candid admission later, Sonia told correspondents who buttonholed her on the issue, “Don’t ask such tricky questions.”

And on the constitution review controversy, it was left to former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar to snub Vajpayee, which he did effectively by blasting the Government for bypassing Parliament on such a vital subject. Curiously, the review did not find a single mention in Sonia’s vitriolic speech although the Congress held a huge rally in Nagpur barely a week ago on this very issue. “Perhaps she has said enough outside the House,” Vajpayee laughed.

But by the time Vajpayee got around to mocking the Congress for its volte face on subsidy cuts (the first cut was enforced by the Narasimha Rao Government), Congress MPs had found their tongues. As the House erupted in angry exchanges between the treasury benches and the opposition, Vajpayee abruptly ended his speech, satisfied perhaps that he had proved that youthneed not get the better of age.

Later, he remarked quixotically to correspondents in the corridor that he had left many points unsaid because of the “atmosphere” in the House.

The Sonia-Vajpayee face-off came at the end of the debate on the motion of thanks to the President for his address to a joint session of Parliament. It had generated enough excitement in Parliament for the visitor’s galleries to be full. Rajya Sabha MPs like Ambika Soni, Kuldip Nayyar and Sushma Swaraj looked on as did Sonia loyalists like M L Fotehdar and Vishwa Bandhu Gupta.