Strict tone
After surviving an Opposition-backed no-confidence motion, the Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, has adopted a noticeably stricter tone while presiding over the House. The Speaker’s assertiveness has cut across party lines, with members from both the Opposition and the treasury benches facing sharper interventions. Earlier this week, the Union minister of agriculture and farmers welfare, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, was asked to keep his responses brief during the Question Hour. Chouhan is known for beginning his speeches with praises for Prime Minister Narendra Modi before addressing the issue at hand. The exchange took place when Chouhan was responding to a query from the Samajwadi Party parliamentarian, Dharmendra Yadav, regarding the government’s promise of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. As Yadav pressed the government on continued agrarian distress, Chouhan attempted to counter with claims of significant growth in the income of some farmers. “Mr Minister, don’t engage in a debate. Just answer,” Birla intervened, adding that Chouhan was repeating points. The exchange was seen as an unusual moment for Chouhan, who previously served four terms as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and was considered a prominent contender for the PM’s post. Birla has also urged MPs to keep their questions concise to ensure that more issues can be addressed, signalling a broader push for efficiency and discipline in parliamentary proceedings.
Cinematic jab
The lexicon of the Dhurandhar film series has entered political parlance. During a recent debate in the Delhi assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party minister, Parvesh Verma, called the former Aam Aadmi Party CM, Arvind Kejriwal, “Rehman Dakait”, referring to the Pakistani gangster-politician portrayed by Akshaye Khanna in the first instalment of the film. Verma accused Kejriwal of corruption linked to the renovation of his official residence when the latter was in office. The comptroller and auditor general of India had flagged the renovation as overpriced.
Rivals embrace
In Durgapur, the ‘two-main theory’ in politics took a literal turn this Ram Navami. The Trinamool Congress’s Kabi Dutta and the BJP’s outgoing legislator, Lakshman Chandra Ghorui, shared a public embrace, that too on the Vishwa Hindu Parishad stage. The two rivals hugged, shook hands, and raised slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” together as Parijat Ganguly, a BJP leader who was arrested last year for inciting a mob in a hate crime, played the high priest of the event, leading chants of “Hindu Hindu Bhai Bhai”.
Opposition parties were quick to allege a tacit understanding between the rivals. While Dutta, Mamata Banerjee’s blue-eyed boy, dismissed the optics as “mere courtesy”, Ghorui openly elicited the CM’s response to seeing her candidate indulging in saffron sloganeering.
Handsome returns
The railways minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, who has been nominated twice to the Rajya Sabha from Odisha with the support of the Biju Janata Dal, has earned considerable goodwill among the people of Odisha for his unwavering support for railway development in the state. The renovation work for Cuttack and five other railway stations has already been completed, while the same for Bhubaneswar, Puri, and 59 other locations is underway under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme.
In response to a question from the BJD MP, Subhashish Khuntia, Vaishnaw informed the upper House on Friday that the budget allocation for Odisha has increased 13 times since the BJP government came to power at the Centre. He stated that while the state received an average of Rs 838 crore annually from 2009 to 2014, in 2025-26 it received Rs 10,599 crore, while the commissioning of new railway tracks has increased more than 3.5 times. Observers feel that he is keen on giving back to Odisha.
Epic battle
The voters of the Jorhat constituency in Assam will face a difficult choice between the three-term Congress MP, Gaurav Gogoi, widely seen as the future face of national politics, and the low-profile, five-time BJP MLA and former minister, Hitendranath Goswami, known for his no-nonsense approach towards life and politics. Gogoi has given the April 9 electoral battle an epic angle, saying, “He (Goswami) knows everything about Jorhat… Just as Arjuna in the Mahabharata fulfilled his duty and fought against Bhishma Pitamah, in the same way, I will consider him as Bhishma Pitamah and perform my own duty and responsibility towards my party. I will remain steadfast on the path of ethics and enter the electoral battle.” Though Bhishma and Arjuna were in opposite camps, their battle was one of mutual respect, of duty over familial ties. Goswami has also spoken fondly about his “younger brother, the son of our Tarunda”, referring to Gaurav’s father and the former CM, late Tarun Gogoi.
