Three-fold safety

Ministers of all political parties are known to be superstitious, particularly when it comes to occupying a new house or office space. But a senior minister in the ruling National Democratic Alliance went the extra mile to propitiate the gods before moving into the Lutyens' Delhi bungalow that he was allotted. The house was previously occupied by a United Progressive Alliance minister who had had to demit office following a corruption scandal. The new incumbent was so spooked by his predecessor's fate that he performed not one but three different puja ceremonies to ward off the evil. Perhaps it did not occur to him that honesty would save him from the previous occupant's predicament.