New Delhi:
The Railway Minister does not have a room in Parliament. And a reminder has not worked. So in gentle protest, Dinesh Trivedi met Laloo Yadav formally in the corridor right outside Room No 6 - vacant, but not handed over to him.
The soft-spoken Dinesh Trivedi is a trifle ruffled, though in his articulate and rather apologetic manner he wants to make clear that he is not "protesting". Or "complaining". But it would be nice to have a room when senior colleagues come calling, he reckons. There is also the matter of a name-plate that goes missing every now and then, that has the Trinamool Congress leader perplexed.
"Yesterday, Honourable Laloo Yadavji, who had been a railway minister wanted to meet me. So he said that I will come to the Rail Bhawan. I said no, you are a senior person, it does not look nice for you to come here. I will come with my officers and we will meet in Room no. 6, which has been the Railway Ministry's room for the last many years. But when I came here yesterday there was a problem - my name plate was removed. We kept it again, but when I came here today, my name plate had again been removed," Mr Trivedi said.
The Railway Minister says he can function from anywhere. "I can even sit on a sack... it is the question of honourable MPs, where are they going to sit? Work cannot wait for the want of a chair or a bench or a place."
Mr Trivedi had complained to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal and to Leader of the Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee yesterday that he had not been given Room no 6 yet. He says he was told that he would have the room by 1 pm today, but went there only to find his name plate gone again. "It means they don't want me to sit in that room," the cabinet minister concludes.
The BJP could not resist a smirk and a slight. "It's bizarre that ministers are fighting for a room, but what better can you expect of him in the company of Laloo?" asked BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy. "