The funny side of this Winter Session 2018!
I must agree I missed the Nagpur chills, Nagpur’s Hotel stays, the food and overall the Nagpurian welcome that we Mumbaikar’s get in Decembers since so many years; the weekend gateways, the Saoji food, the Umred/TAdoba drive et all…For your information, Umred’s Ramesh Bhau (for unknown, in Nagpur Saoji is the typical style of preparing your meat, but a 50 km drive from Nagpur serves the best i.e. in Umred prepared by Ramesh bhau) has closed down his operations and only take away’s have started. Bad news for Mumbaikars who travelled to Nagpur just to get the glimpse of the best non-vegetarian food Ramesh Bhau made…
Anyway, point is not food–my favourite topic, but the session that concluded yesterday. If you need technical happenings of what happened & how it unfolded, please read newspapers of the last 8 days! In Marathi, Lokmat covered all the possible happenings hands down as they had a team of more than 4 journalists in Vidhan Bhavan premises. Two covered the upper and lower houses shift wise and two covered the premises, in short, liasoning and maintaining PR. The first week began with a boom. Two days of holiday owing to Eid & Gurupurab and rest three days in just adjournment of both the houses over the reservation issue. We all reached late, left early. Opposition in the lower house only chanted one mantra, table the bill on Maratha reservation and let a discussion happen. But as smart and snooty the Government is, it was firm on its ground that only the Action Taken Report would be tabled and the bill would be passed without any discussion. This happened exactly on the 7th day and as decided it was passed in both the houses. The credit of course for this floor management entirely goes to our CM.
In midst of getting house adjourned regularly, I saw a new trend this time… On many occasions during the ruckus, opposition members lifted the Rajdand to show their protest. What I recollect, in the last government ex Speaker Dilip Walse Patil had suspended 3 of BJP’s & SS’s MLA’s for doing so till that particular session got over, unlike this time. Ajab Sarkar hai na…Anyways, on one particular day, when Nana (Haribhau Bagde) was on the chair, Congress’s Naseem Khan wanted to speak for which he was raising his hand for a long time….a pattern followed by MLA’s to seek speakers attention; but Nana apart from Khan was giving everyone their turn to speak on a particular issue. Frustrated and angry, Naseem Khan stood up and with vengeance & anger and on top of his voice he screamed at the Speaker whilst making some rude gestures by his hand. This angered Minister Girish Bapat to know extend who immediately registered his protest against Khan. That was the first time, I guess I saw Bapat shouting in the house and getting red faced all these years.
Also, for the first time I saw “bhaichara” in the house. “Muslims should get reservation too” asserted Hindu MLA’s. People made fun of Dr. Jitendra Ahwad by tagging pen names such as “Jittudddin” on social media but for me, he was doing his job. Admist rumours of his closest associate Najeeb who helped Ahwad capture Mumbra like never before, joining ShivSena, Ahwad’s frustration and anger could be seen on all 8 days. Never he got enough opportunity to speak in the house nor his bosses allocated important topics to him to which he is very good at. A power packed MLA who has great oratory skills was yet again, asked to remain silent. By the way one of the boss of NCP, Jayant Patil looked younger than his age than he is. Must be the weird “hair weaving” he has got it done. I’m sure he must have got it done in Sangli, he should asked his sons who travel to London regularly… But I still prefer Uday Samant with these artificial hair to Jayant Patil. At least, Samant still has that child-like innocence on his face.
CM’s master stroke was taming Ajit Pawar yet again. I must agree, I have never seen CM so tensed in this sessions against all others put together. The Maratha, OBC & Dhangar reservation along with the drought in the state and 26/11 I am sure CM has lost a lot of sleep in these 8 days. To top that, the command of running the CMO was with Abhimanyu Pawar, and the cabin next to the CM was more occupied with Laturkar’s than other staff’s. I know he wants the ticket for upcoming 2019 but….Sumit Wankhede was conspicuous with his absence after first 2 days but later it was learnt he had a wedding of close family member to attend too…CM & we missed you Sumit bhau!
As for IAS, I don’t know where do they sit apart from Pravin Pardeshi and Bhushan Gagrani. I did not see most of them apart from few of them who showed up during the question /answer session when their department’s topic was involved. On to the famous lunches now….If it was Congress’s Satej (Bunty) Patil in the last government, this 5 years award for feeding guests goes to none other than NCP’s Dhananjay Munde— and yes like Bunty Patil’s team even Munde’s team welcomed with open arms whosoever came to their cabin for lunch. PS Prashant Bhamre take a bow for that. Some of my body weight is thanks to you too now…Had you not been so welcoming even I would have had a body like Minister Vishnu Savra today. Minister Girish Bapat has the most “satvik” dabba of all of them. Bawankule, is another person with a big dabba and heart too…Some of my colleagues were joking that Minister Eknath Shinde is so corrupt that he charges an entry fee whosoever comes to his cabin to eat…Jokes apart, if you for once happen to have a round in Vidhan Bhavan the aroma of food is the only bets thing you smell here.
Some 18 bills were passed in the lower house and the record one being the Maratha reservation which was passed unanimously by both the houses in one single day. Gritty Prithviraj Chavan was more outside than inside the house for giving bytes (as he is the only sensible and intelligent ones, actually) to the TV channels and Ajit Pawar laid low after the ACB news came out. Bhujbal tried to be the old Bhujbal we knew, but ting tong–BJP was too good him. Ram Kadam and Prasad Lad were hobnobbing with everyone and MLA’s Ashish Shelar, Sunil Prabhu, Anant Gadgil (MLC), Atul Bhatkalkar and Parag Alwani spoke and made sense whenever they got a chance. Capt Tamil Selvan’s LAQ was made a laughing stock by Minster Vinod Tawde on PT being made compulsory for 1 hour in school. Does Vinod Tawde and exercise go together? Just asking….
Pankaja Munde seemed to lost a lot of weight after her overseas trip in the US recently. For a change, her hairdo and dressing sense made sense to me. I think the next time you guys see Minister Pravin Pote Patil (for those who don’t know he is our MoS PWD) try searching for his neck. His face is directly connected to the lower body such is the impact of over eating on him. Our Amul Baby was always lost in space and time but she was never asked nor she was a Thakurain in the House. Girish Mahajan–our Bjp’s Akshay Kumar the lady killer– wore a suit on the day of reservation announcement often sweating in places I don’t want to mention in public…but yes, he did it publicly.
At the end, at the cost of some crores of public money, we all had a gala time in these 8 days…The mantri’s and MLA’s wore expensive clothes, showed off their cool wheels and we all ATE…Till the 18th of Feb now, see you round folks…
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