15th LS begins maiden session

Two weeks ago, National Conference patriarch Farooq Abdullah was unsure about his position in Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet. Today, the veteran Kashmiri leader and Union Minister for new and renewable energy found a new role. Sitting at a strategic position in the first row of Parliament, Abdullah was reminding many junior MPs to sign the Parliament register before coming back to their seats.

The 15th Lok Sabha is set to witness a five-year-long political tussle between the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA on various issues. But on the opening day of the new Lok Sabha, the two sides exchanged warm smiles and jocular remarks keeping the political battle for another day.

Of course, there were exceptions. Srikant Jena, the disgruntled Minister of State from Orissa, took the oath today but completely overlooked the Congress bench. While he walked up to Opposition leaders like the BJP’s LK Advani, Jaswant Singh, Rajnath Singh, CPI(M)’s Basudeb Acharia and others and greeted them, Jena didn’t exchange any pleasantries with Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh or other Congress stalwarts.

In the visitors’ gallery, Priyanka Vadra accompanied by her husband Robert waited patiently to watch Sonia Gandhi taking the oath. The UPA chairperson was the third MP to take oath after the leader of the House (Pranab Mukherjee) and Leader of Opposition (LK Advani). Her son Rahul Gandhi sat at a rear seat and held quick meetings with party colleagues.

Senior Congress leader Manikrao Gavit was elected as the Pro-tem Speaker to preside over the first two days of the 15th Lok Sabha.

No Congress leaders (except Jena), who took oath in the morning, forgot to greet Gandhi. But many forgot to do “namaskar” to the prime minister, indicating clearly who they thought the new boss was. Acharia took oath in Bengali, while Tamil MPs like P Chidambaram, MK Azhagiri and Dayanidhi Maran preferred their mother tongue over English. BJP leader Sumitra Mahajan took oath in Sanskrit.

The first row of the BJP bench comprised stalwarts like Advani, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj. Swaraj enveloped 28-year-old Agatha Sangma — the youngest minister of the UPA government — in a warm hug when she came to greet the Opposition leaders.

Farooq Abdullah reserved his emotion for one MP — when Sachin Pilot took oath, Abdullah stood up and shook hands with his son-in-law.