6 5 august 2019S
enior Trinamool
Congress (TmC) mP Saugata roy
is never lost for words. a taciturn man
in real life, his professorial talents
and wealth of knowledge find full
expression in Parliament. easily the
ablest parliamentarian on the TmC
benches—he was first elected to the
lok Sabha in 1977 and has since been
a member either of the West Bengal
assembly or the lok Sabha—he never
lets go of an opportunity to pin down
the Government. Given his mastery
of the rule book, his points of order
often leave the ruling party benches
squirming with embarrassment. So,
when the other day participating in
the debate on the Budget, he
mentioned ambanis and adanis to
make the case that the Government
was pro-business, the treasury
benches erupted in protest.
meenakshi lekhi, the new Delhi mP,
was in the chair. She immediately
expunged the impugned remark:
“ambanis and adanis are essential for
the Government.” Help soon came
from another veteran on the
opposition benches. Biju Janta Dal’s
Bhartruhari mahtab pointed out that
this House in the earlier decades had
regularly echoed with references to
Birlas and Tatas from the opposition
members. if those were okay, refer-
ences to ambanis and adanis surely
could not be unparliamentary? lekhi
promised to reconsider the decision to
expunge roy’s reference to ambanis
and adanis. Which reminds me of the
time not long ago when the late
Samajwadi Party mP, Janeshwar
mishra, had put up a board on the
lawns of his house located bang
opposite Shastri Bhawan. it
proclaimed loudly: ‘lohia ke log.’ in
his youth mishra was a firebrand
lohiaite, constantly in the protest
mode, railing against the pro-business
policies of the then dominant
Congress. Since then, the socialist
ardour has virtually evaporated even
from the party that has ‘samajwad’ in
its name. now, to my mind, it would
be in the fitness of things if they all
had boards proclaiming themselves
to be of this or that industrialist’s log,
though if it came to the two As, one
will be beaten hundred to one because
they are still new in this slippery
business. incidentally, Governments
in the ’60s and ’70s suffered no harm
for being accused endlessly of being
in the pockets of Tatas and Birlas. nor
can anyone, including Saugata roy
himself, expect the current regime to
come to grief following the charge of
its softness for ambanis and adanis. if
Tatas and Birlas had become a popular
metaphor for the entire capitalist class
then, ‘ambanis and adanis’ in the
public discourse is a metaphor for big
money in the current age.a
TeleviSion CHannel
launched with great fanfare
just ahead of the lok Sabha polls
rehabilitated star anchors who had
found themselves made redundant
by their previous bosses who failed to
renew their contracts. now, the new
channel too is in the throes of a huge
financial crisis. The main promoter,or at least the one who fronts for the
owners, has virtually washed his
hands of the matter, with the staff
running from pillar to post demand-
ing pay arrears, and severance
benefits, should any be forthcoming.
and the well-known Tv journalist
who had earned a name for herself in
her long stint with another channel,
which too, incidentally, is in deep
financial crisis, finds herself help-
less. Despite her courageous stand in
solidarity with the junior editorial
and technical staff, she has failed to
elicit support from any quarter. aside
from a perfunctory statement by a
body of journalists, precious little has
been done to persuade the owners of
the new channel to at least honour
the mandatory commitments on
pay and severance packages. The
Government, for its part, has strictly
maintained a hands-off approach,
refusing to entertain any request to
intervene in the unseemly goings-in
the new channel.m
oDi’S miniSTerS feel
obliged to stay in the work
mode 24x7, unlike vajpayee’s. We
have often heard ministers who were
also part of the vajpayee Government
that it was fun to be a minister then,
now it is all work. The late Prime
minister was laid-back, enjoying long
post-lunch siestas and leaving it to
trusted aides to do the needful. modi,
on the other hand, is a workaholic,
and a tough taskmaster. However,
in modi 2.0, the Prime minister has
cracked the whip even on ordinary
mPs, enjoining upon them to attend
Parliament rather than play truant or
gossip in the Central Hall. Poor
fellows, they are not even ministers
and are still expected to be on ‘duty’
all the time. really, a tough school-
masterish Prime minister, isn’t he? nINDRAPRASTHA
virendra kapoor