The China visit of a TRS MLC Egge Mallesham created a mild flutter in the Legislative Council on Saturday.
As soon as Mr. Mallesham took his turn during a debate on coronavirus and said he had visited China, his colleagues sitting next to him were rattled and raised an alarm “When?”. Mr. Mallesham pacified them saying that it was not any time in the recent past, but three or four years ago. He also said that had he been there recently, he would have straight away gone to a hospital on arrival. There was no need for panic because he was under the watchful eyes of everyone all these days.
The banter in the House did not stop with that. Another MLC Farooq Hussain ruled out coronavirus for Muslim women because they were clad in burqas which had masks to cover their faces. Hindu women and college going girls were also well protected these days because they covered their faces with ‘chunnis’. Perhaps, the most chuckle was reserved for him when he said he walked away from a trader pretending to answer a call on his mobile phone when the latter came up to him coughing during a transaction at his shop.
There’s more to a name!
What’s in a name .. that which we call a rose by another name would smell as sweet goes the old adage. But the same is apparently not the case with some names.
Parakal MLA Ch. Dharma Reddy complained in the Assembly that the name of his native village has not been changed “officially” in spite of repeated requests. The earlier name of the village “Dongala Singaram” (with part reference to thieves) has been changed to more sanguine “Pragati Singaram” (meaning place of development) several years ago. But the official gazette was yet to be issued to notify the change and the old name continues to be in some official records.
Police taken unawares
The police were taken aback when a large group of ABVP and PDSU activists suddenly landed near the Osmania gate of Public Gardens in a bid to gate crash into the Assembly premises on Wednesday demanding higher budget allocation for the education sector.
The high-drama of police versus mob lasted nearly 30 minutes as the uniformed men did not anticipate such a situation and were totally unprepared. Some youth had already barged inside the premises by the time additional forces arrived. The police beat up the youth ‘black and blue’ and, as a result, 25 protesters suffered injuries, but the damage was done by then. Questions were raised on the credibility of the intelligence agencies even as the blame game went up in the chambers of senior officers. A few officers bore the brunt of the ire of their top brass and also the political bosses.
By evening, Commissioner of Police Anjani Kumar had issued a statement justifying use of force under the protection of law to control the unruly crowd. He said “Assembly is a very sacred institution” where proceedings cannot be allowed to be disrupted.
N. Rahul, M. Rajeev and
Abhinay Deshpande
