Tall 'crowd' claims

Hearing Members of Parliament (MPs) talk about the crowd that has assembled at Ramlila Maidan is amusing. Uniformly dismissive of the crowd, they all boast about arranging double or even four times the number present, without raising a sweat. One, an MP from Orissa said: “This lot? Spoilt sons of doting parents! They buy bikes that costs Rs 10 lakh and drink only mineral water, and they are campaigning against corruption? I have won my seat by a margin of 100,000-55,000 votes. Give me a couple of trains and I can bring this kind of crowd at 12-hour notice from my constituency.”Another said: “People? How hard is that? India has a lot of people. It takes nothing to collect them. Ask any one of them what the Jan Lok Pal Bill is all about. They will reply that it is the latest Amitabh Bachchan-starrer film.” He, too, said he could collect 400,000 people, without any difficulty. It feels all the MPs put together could mobilise a crowd double India’s population.