Slogan wars

The Lok Sabha got down to business on Monday despite Congress protests. What amused House members was how Congress MPs changed their slogans when a couple of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs stood up to speak. Congress MPs, particularly the women members, starting booing when BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri got up to speak, forcing him to cut it short. Last week, the Congress MPs, before being suspended by the Speaker, had complained how Bidhuri had allegedly passed misogynistic remarks about them. Then, Congress slogans changed from "Twitter PM shame, shame" to "aaya ram gaya ram" when BJP's Jagdambika Pal raised an issue during a discussion. The phrase was coined after Gaya Lal, a Haryana MLA, changed his party three times in a fortnight, from the Congress to the United Front, back to the Congress and then again to the United Front. Pal has a similar history: He was a Congress MP in the 15th Lok Sabha but switched to the BJP barely a month before the 2014 Lok Sabha poll and won from the Domariyaganj (Uttar Pradesh) seat. Pal is also famous for being the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for three days - between February 21 and 23, 1998.