Penchant for jokes

On Thursday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah unveiled the Hindi translation of a compilation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's speeches and blogposts of the last two years. Journalist and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta, the special invitee at the event, said Jaitley is more than a politician.

He is an accomplished lawyer and his penchant for humour and one-liners is well known. "But it would lead to controversies if his one-liners become public," Dasgupta said. "So, we advise him not to say any of his one-liners in public but phone a friend and share it with him." However, Dasgupta couldn't resist sharing a joke that Jaitley had about his college mate and now ministerial colleague Vijay Goel. Pointing to Goel who was present in the audience, Dasgupta recounted how Jaitley had named Goel "the Prince of Wales".

This was because Goel was always keen to get the BJP ticket but the leadership would prefer Charti Lal Goyal (his father), Dasgupta said. As soon as Dasgupta ended his speech a couple of minutes later, Goel walked out instead of waiting to hear Jaitley and Shah's speeches.