HOME | NEWS | CAPITAL BUZZ
Cash for coverage               Virendra Kapoor
   December 17, 2002

In Gujarat to cover the just-concluded election, India Today Managing Editor Swapan Dasgupta and Special Correspondent Uday Mahurkar sought press passes to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's meeting.

A day later, they received two envelopes from the state Congress headquarters in Ahmedabad. The first contained the passes, the second Rs 400 in cash.

When the journos protested and returned the cash, the Congressman on the spot was aghast. Seemed nobody else had let him have an ear full and returned the money.

When money spoke

Another story from the campaign trail:

When a leader of an Opposition party -- which, incidentally, has not much of a presence in Gujarat -- landed in Ahmedabad, his local handlers gave him a grand reception. But in these days of rent-a-crowd rallies, you cannot really vouch for the integrity of hired hands.

So when our man stepped into the public arena from the airport lounge, some raised slogans hailing him as a great leader: 'Desh ka neta kaisa ho, so-and-so jaisa ho.'

But the chant was broken by a shrill response from a section of the hired crowd, which went: 'Jis ki jeb mein paisa ho.'

The unanswerable question

Lalit Suri, newly-elected member of Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, has made his presence felt in the House.

The other day he made a couple of telling points in the debate on divestment, though scrupulous followers of parliamentary etiquette noted that since he was a beneficiary of that ongoing programme, he should have refrained.

Suri did not think much of this nitpicking. A couple of days later, when Finance Minister Jaswant Singh was answering questions, he upped and asked a supplementary as to when the government would grant the hotel industry tax relief.

Singh looked at him coldly. "I cannot answer this question," he said, and sat down.

Hopefully, Suri has learnt his first lesson in parliamentary etiquette.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh

Mail us your comments

Capital Buzz

NEWS | MONEY | SPORTS | MOVIES | CHAT | CRICKET | SEARCH | RAIL/AIR | NEWSLINKS
ASTROLOGY | BROADBAND | CONTESTS | E-CARDS | ROMANCE | WOMEN | WEDDING
SHOPPING | BOOKS | MUSIC | PERSONAL HOMEPAGES | FREE EMAIL| MESSENGER | FEEDBACK