New Delhi, July 21 (Inditop.com) Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has retired from active politics and did not even contest the April-May general elections but if he ever decides to visit parliament house, he will find a cosy room waiting for him.
It’s room number 4 on the ground floor, with the board outside reading: “Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Chairman, National Democratic Alliance.”
On the walls of the small and neatly arranged room are photographs of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deendayal Upadhyaya, the stalwarts of the erstwhile Jana Sangh that merged into the Janata Party at the time of the 1977 elections that saw then prime minister Indira Gandhi lose power and then re-emerged as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Sadly, there is no one to be seen in the room. But then, that’s the fickleness of politics. A senior BJP leader, when queried purely out of curiosity whether Vajpayee was still the NDA chair, sheepishly replied: “I am not too sure.”
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Opposition to Pranab’s aid
Not that he needs it, but Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee received some unexpected support from the opposition in the Lok Sabha Tuesday – after he soothed ruffled feathers.
It started with the opposition spitting fire and brimstone on the India-US end-user agreement signed Monday during the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
After patiently listening to opposition leaders and just when they had run out of steam, Mukherjee, the leader of the house, stood up to say the government would come up with a statement “before the rising of the house”.
This perhaps confused Janata Dal-United (JD-D) leader Sharad Yadav, who said: “The government should make statement today itself.”
A smiling Mukherjee replied: “I have already stated it.”
As Yadav continued to stand, other opposition members asked Yadav to sit down as Mukherjee had said the statement would be made on Tuesday itself.
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Bye, bye Bollywood for Shotgun?
Is it “Bye, bye Bollywood” for Shatrughan “Shotgun” Sinha? It would seem the lure of politics is stronger than essaying a character in Hindi movies.
“How much can you do at the same time?” he replied when asked by IANS in parliament house about his future movie plans.
“I’ve already done more than 250 films,” he added for good measure.
But then, it’s a moot point whether there’s space for Sinha’s histrionics in the Bollywood genre of today with the focus being almost entirely on the youth.
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For B.K. Handique, his ministry is a literal minefield!
For Mines Minister B.K. Handique, his portfolio is turning out to be a literal minefield – as he discovered in the Lok Sabha Tuesday.
It happened during question hour when his reply seemed to only confuse a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP who had posed the query.
“Mantriji ulta bol raha hai (The minister is going round in circles),” the BJP member remarked.
rounak