New Delhi : The ruling BJP’s success in shrinking the opposition’s ranks may not yet have prompted soul-searching, but it has certainly triggered moments of dark humour and mirth in Parliament.
On Thursday, Trinamool Congress’s most loquacious MP, Kalyan Banerjee, arrived in the Parliament precincts draped in a giant banner carrying photographs of 20 Bengal MPs who have switched over to the BJP. The banner headline screamed: “Lok Sabha mein Bangal Ka 20 Gaddar (The 20 traitors from Bengal in the Lok Sabha)”.
As Banerjee posed for photographers, Priyanka Gandhi and a few other MPs, including Rajiv Ranjan, alias ‘Pappu’ Yadav from Bihar, Imran Masud from Uttar Pradesh et al, stopped to admire his handiwork.
“Par in mein se kaafi sare to hamare yahan se aapke yahaan gaye aur phir BJP mein bhaag gaye (A whole lot of them were first with us before they joined you and then ran away to the BJP),” Gandhi told him with a smile.
Banerjee insisted that they may have come from the Congress, but they had won on the Trinamool Congress ticket. At that, Pappu Yadav butted in, saying they were definitely turncoats from the Congress to begin with. “The to Congressi (whatever you may say, they were with the Congress first),” Yadav said.
“So what, even I was a Congressi. I was vice president of the Youth Congress,” Banerjee declared, to the laughing group of Congress MPs. Not stopping there, he advanced towards Gandhi, “Arre tum log Didi ko bhi bhaga diya (you people hounded Mamata Banerjee out of the Congress too). If you hadn’t turned her out in 1997, you wouldn’t have been in this state,” he said.
But Gandhi was not about to let that pass. “Didi ko Rajivji bohot maante the (Rajiv Gandhi respected Mamata Banerjee),” she said.
“You’re right about that. Rajiv ji adored Didi. But you people…” he was about to launch into a tirade when Pappu Yadav again interrupted, saying, “Soniaji also respected Didi.”
“Arre Pappu Singh, you listen. These people (the Congress) went with the CPM. We were fighting with the CPM. They betrayed us,” said Banerjee, about to start another rant when a smiling Gandhi walked away, leaving behind a cluster of laughing MPs.
