Inside track by Coomi Kapoor: Wrestling troubles

While sitting in the front row during the Prime Minister’s speech in the new Parliament building, Amit Shah received a constant flow of messages from his office. The Home Ministry was giving him the latest updates on the Manipur situation and the Delhi Police’s ugly confrontation with protesting wrestlers, just a short distance from Parliament House. The wrestlers had attempted to break the police cordon and march to Parliament to press for their demand for the arrest of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, chief of the Wrestling Federation of India. Seemingly unperturbed by the mounting agitation against him, Singh was active inside Parliament taking selfies with all who would pose with him so that he could post it on social media. Several MPs discreetly moved away when they saw him approaching. BJP Jat MPs in particular kept their distance and were visibly uncomfortable with their party’s failure to act against Singh, as the campaign has gained much momentum in their community, which has produced many sports medalists. Jat mahapanchayats have started demonstrations outside houses of BJP Jat MPs. One Jat parliamentarian who was photographed with Singh was roundly abused as “a traitor”. His frantic explanation, that he was only trying to be polite by acknowledging Singh’s greetings, was found unacceptable.

A rocky road

At the inauguration of the Parliament House building, the BJP’s ‘most successful BJP chief minister’, Yogi Adityanath, and its longest-serving, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, were seen engaging in a conversation. Chouhan assured Adityanath that contrary to rumours, the party is confident of a victory in Madhya Pradesh.

Also read: Inside track by Coomi Kapoor: Shah of North-East

But the soft-spoken Chouhan is conscious that he is on a sticky wicket in his state that is headed to the polls. He has to combat incumbency built up over 17 years in office and accommodate all factions in the state unit, including the newest BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia. Chouhan may have the edge among OBC voters, but has yet to win over the SCs and STs.

In contrast to the nervousness in the BJP camp, there was cocky confidence at a meeting of the Congress Madhya Pradesh unit presided over by Rahul Gandhi on Monday. Gandhi noted approvingly that unlike every other pre-election state-level meeting, in Madhya Pradesh, there was only one name mentioned as Chief Minister and there were no internal differences. (His inference was that Kamal Nath’s name was unanimous.) The Congress in-house poll strategist, Sunil Kanugolu, has already predicted a victory for the party.

Some quibbles

The mood of triumph and jubilation at the new Parliament House inauguration was not marred by a few quibblers. Two BJP MPs asked Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi why so many random people had been invited. (It was to fill the empty spaces thanks to the Opposition boycott.) An aesthete winced at the shocking bright green and pink hues, the theme colours of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha chambers. Most guests left uneaten the tacky cellophane-wrapped vegetarian sandwiches which were served to the guests. Some BJP MPs enviously questioned the major role given to deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Harivansh Narayan Singh, though his JD(U) boycotted the event and he is considered a political lightweight. Singh was actually standing in for Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who, like President Droupadi Murmu, outranks the PM in the official order of precedence, and hence discreetly stayed away.

Also read: Inside track by Coomi Kapoor

Lore on past law

The Delightful Mr Daphtary, by Fali Nariman and Vinoo Bhagat, on C K Daphtary, the country’s second attorney general, provides insight into the legal giant’s craft and wit. For instance, Daphtary as Attorney General exercised his authority in ensuring correctness in the judicial process by asking Chief Justice of India P B Gajendragadkar to recuse himself from a land acquisition case because he had an indirect pecuniary interest in the matter. Daphtary insisted on upholding the great traditions of the bar, even though it actually went against his personal interest in the case. Another nugget is that Daphtary during the Emergency had the gumption to demand of Chief Justice of India A N Ray that the crucial bench to decide on the historic preventive detention cases should be based on seniority. A furious Ray questioned how anyone dared to suggest to a Chief Justice how to constitute a bench. Never at a loss for words, Daphtary claimed that Ray’s guru and mentor S R Dass had been requested in the past and not taken it badly. Taken aback, Ray acceded. The authors suggest mischievously that Daphtary had in fact invented the Dass anecdote to put pressure on Ray to feel he should follow Dass’s example. Unhappily, the two senior judges included as a consequence did not live up to Daphtary’s expectations.