Angry outburst

Invited to deliver a talk on power and its effects on powerful people in Bhubaneswar last week, former minister and Congress veteran Mani Shankar Aiyar appeared to be in a good mood fielding questions from the audience and even cracking jokes occasionally. But then, a young BJP leader sitting in the audience got his goat. Aiyar lost his cool when the young leader said that the BJP had removed Congress from power and that Congress had chosen Rahul Gandhi as their leader because he came from a powerful family. A visibly irritated Aiyar shot back: “You did not remove me from power. In my state, it was AIADMK and you are a non-entity there. You don’t need to tell us who should we choose as our leader. It is our choice. We would never have chosen Modi as our leader.” 

Respect issue 

Law minister Arun Sahu’s statement that leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra had turned senile not only raised the hackles of Congress leaders but also hurt some senior members of the BJD who have been feeling ignored. While the outspoken excise minister Damodar Rout, openly expressed his displeasure at the remark, some other party leaders also spoke against it privately. This grouse was that law minister’s comment though directed against the leader of Opposition reflected lack of respect for older generation leaders in general. “In public life, decency should be maintained at all costs and people in authority should be careful about what they are saying,” said a senior leader.   

Ministry review

The talk of a ministry rejig is once again in the air and not just because some of Naveen Patnaik’s ministers such as Sanjay Das Burma are in trouble. The buzz in the ruling party circles is that the chief minister seriously reviews the performance of his ministers every two years and rewards or punishes them accordingly. As it is, Naveen has already written to the ministers to undertake a self-review before he calls them individually to assess their performance, especially in light of poll promises made by his government in 2014. The letter is said to have made many of the ministers jittery as they have failed to come up to the scratch despite repeated warnings.

Delay boon

The talk in the state’s political circles is that repeated adjournment of the Assembly over Opposition’s allegations about Rs 8 crore having been deposited in BJD’s bank account was a boon in disguise for the ruling party as it gave them time to get their act together. There are insinuations that the BJD was so confused by the allegation that it needed time to crosscheck facts before coming up with an effective counter-strategy. “They needed to check the bank details and consult each other. For all this, time was needed. The ruckus over the issue that led to the adjournment of the House thus came as a relief for the ruling party though its leaders have been blaming the Opposition for trying to stall House proceedings,” said an Opposition leader. 

Lingo bar

Social media has triggered a communication revolution. It provides a platform to people cutting across age groups to express their views and connect with each other. But language occasionally poses a problem. People would do well to be extremely careful about the language they choose to communicate in because there might be serious goof-ups like the one that happened recently when a lawyer sought to convey his condolence message through the social media on the 11th day ceremony of the late Justice B.P. Ray. Apparently not at home in English, he chose the word “assassination” to describe the Justice’s death, who passed away following illness. The post caused expected consternation among those who had known Justice Ray and was later removed.   

FOOTNOTE

Only questions 

There is a new trend among politicians, especially among those belonging to the Congress, to pose questions instead of answering them while addressing the media on crucial issues. One saw this happening when former state youth Congress president Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, aka Lulu, brought allegations against his rival and food supplies and consumer welfare minister Sanjay Das Burma. Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra adopted a similar strategy while making allegations against the BJD on the issue of Rs 8 crore having been deposited into the latter’s bank account. While the strategy suits the leaders concerned, it ends up confusing the media that would look for straight answers and uncomplicated statements from leaders.