Bonding under oath

The presence of the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader in the Rajya Sabha, Ram Gopal Yadav, at cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s brief oath-taking in the chamber of Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari set tongues wagging in the political corridors. While apart from the two Ministers of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Harish Rawat and Rajeev Shukla, the only other political party representative present there was Yadav, who is also SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother. With the growing bonhomie between the Congress and the SP (the latest being the Congress Party’s decision to not contest in Kannauj bypolls), many senior politicians wondered whether Yadav being accorded this privilege had anything to do with this growing friendship. After all, any politician would pay an arm and a leg to be present at the cricketing legend Tendulkar’s oath-taking ceremony.