Gowda Speaks, Members Sleep

When others speak, he is seen dozing off; when he speaks, others are put to sleep.

Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda may not quite agree with such a formulation, but events in the Lok Sabha yesterday indicated that he has quite a somnolescent effect on fellow MPs. He is often seen taking a nap in the midst of speeches, but during his 90-minute reply to the motion of thanks on the Presidents address, he succeeded in putting several colleagues to sleep.

Not known to be articulate in English a point Gowda has candidly mentioned often several MPs were seen straining to catch his words. When that proved quite an effort, they were seen putting away their earphones and dozing off.

 

A Congress MP remarked that Gowdas speech was one of the most boring in recent times. There seemed to be little interest in his speech since everybody present knew that the motion would be passed comfortably, given the numbers of the United Front and the supporting Congress. The MPs present gave the impression that they were merely going through the motion of thanking the President for his address at the beginning of the session.

However, Gowdas speech was marked by several light moments as he tripped on facts on some occasions. Towards the end, evidently aware of the growing ennui over Gowdas monotonous speech, speaker P A Sangma told him to wind up, it is already getting 1.30 pm.

For one, Gowda referred to the Presidents address as the Governors address, and explained that the slip was mainly due to the fact that he had spent most of his political life in state politics. On one occasion, he referred to senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi as Manmohan Joshi.

Some time later, Gowda mentioned the name of his finance minister as Manmohan..., only to correct himself and name P Chidambaram.

Speaking about the countrys missile programme, he described the Agni missile as Arjun, only to be told that Arjun refers to the indigenously developed main battle tank.

During his reply, Gowda once again returned to his famous line: I never thought I would be the Prime Minister; only to be told by opposition members: Now that is an old story. Faced with some heckling by BJP members, he told them: You dont have to see politics at every stage.