‘A matter of potency’

An anecdote by Legislative Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar provided comic relief to the proceedings.

Ramesh intervened when Minister Krishna Byre Gowda was referring to horse-trading on the floor of the House. He recalled an incident when Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister and Acharya Kripalani the opposition leader.

During the time, Kripalani’s wife - Sucheta Kripalani - had joined the Congress. Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, Kripalani had pulled Nehru’s leg and took a veiled dig at him by commenting that though he knew that Congressmen were loafers, he never knew that they were elopers, Ramesh said.

Nehru used the same humourous approach to rebut Kripalani’s statement, Ramesh said. “Nehru responded by saying that it (eloping) was a matter of potency,” he added.

How can I pass you now?

Another funny incident took place when Byre Gowda was referring to ‘Operation Kamala’. In his attempt to prove that BJP had a hand in the resignation of coalition MLAs, he furnished various paper clippings which linked the coalition MLAs’ resignation and flight to Mumbai to BJP.

Speaker Kumar said the situation would not have arisen if the coalition partners had spoken to four or five MLAs before they resigned.

“We failed in that,” Byre Gowda said. After having failed there, how is it possible to pass you now, Kumar quipped, indicating the lack of numbers with the ruling coalition.