The jokes of the year

What’s there in a name? Asks the Bard. Even when you call a rose by any other name, it smells as sweet! There is a proposal that the name of the state should be changed to Telugu Nadu from Andhra Pradesh, embracing all the 23 districts of the state. Jokes apart, things are not happening as per the whims and fancies of the Congress party which has taken a unilateral decision to bifurcate the state. No 13 is always considered to be an unlucky number. Let us hope the year 2014 will be luckier for Telangana and the country as a whole when there will be a new government at the Centre as well.

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has received an award for “Best performing state in governance” at the India Today “State of the States” conclave held recently. While congratulating the Chief Minister for the prestigious award, one fails to understand how Andhra Pradesh was honoured when, in fact, there was no government in the state in the last one year. The Chief Minister was functioning from his Camp Office without going to the Secretariat. While Telangana ministers were boycotting the Secretariat initially, even Seemandhra ministers were not to be seen after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) had announced its decision to bifurcate the state on July 30.

Either there is something wrong with the award or there are no states better governed than Andhra Pradesh! Besides, the Chief Minister deserves a big pat on his back for holding on to power virtually defying the high command, especially Sonia Gandhi. In fact, that award must be for his courage and determination to keep AP united.

While P Shankar Rao, former AP minister, has said that the new state of Telangana should be named after Congress president Sonia Gandhi, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said the party president was not just the mother of Rahul Gandhi, but the entire India. These talks remind us of the Emergency of 1975-77 when the then Congress president Debkanta Barua said Indira is India and India is Indira. The foreign Minister was speaking on Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s remark that if Rahul was not named the prime ministerial candidate, then the Congress president should take up the mantle. How right Justice Markandey Katju was when he said 90 per cent of Indians were idiots.

Justice Katju is famous for some of his gems. He asked Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal what caste his party represented. “Here in India, 90 per cent are so stupid and backward they vote only on casteist notions. They are not interested in honesty.”

God only knows what exactly Chandrababu Naidu meant in one of his press conferences when he started speaking in Italian. Immobilissmo (immobilised) was the word he used to describe strife torn Andhra Pradesh, to explain it to Italian Sonia Gandhi. Don’t know if Sonia Gandhi understood his Italian, But he definitely left the media in a state of immobilissmo!

Whenever Rahul Gandhi speaks, he puts his foot into the mouth. On one such occasion, he said: “The Ordinance (to protect convicted legislators) is a complete nonsense and should be torn and thrown away.” And he did it in the presence of media persons at Delhi Press Club. Though the President had returned the Ordinance without his assent, the statement was an insult to the Prime Minister. Any other Prime Minister in his position would have resigned. But Manmohan Singh, who is used to such snide remarks, saved the situation. Asked by press persons on a flight from one of his foreign tours Singh said he had no quarrels with Rahul. In fact, he was prepared to work with him in any capacity when Rahul becomes Prime Minister!

Manmohan Singh is the only person after Jawaharlal Nehru to complete two consecutive terms as Prime Minister of the country. To him goes the dubious credit of becoming Prime Minister without winning an election. Once he contested from Delhi and lost. Thereafter, he is being re-elected to the Rajya Sabha from Assam.

Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, who wants to throw out the Congress-led UPA Government lock, stock and barrel in the 2014 elections, already talks like a Prime Minister on issues concerning the country, whereas Rahul Gandhi, who will be pitted against Modi, talks like an Opposition leader. At a recent meeting of the Ficci, he was asking so many questions which generally the Opposition leaders ask.

At the foundation-laying ceremony of the world’s tallest statue for Sardar Patel, Modi described the Father of the Nation as Mohanlal Karamchand Gandhi (instead of Mohandas). Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh always says Modi doesn’t have the facts on most of the things. He also seems to forget the correct name of Gandhiji as well.

Modi has coined a new slogan, “Vote for India.” “I want that in the next elections, people should not just vote for a party, but for the country,” he said at a huge rally in Mumbai. “The country is supreme… “So I say, Vote for India, to solve our problems.” At a rally in Varanasi, he said, “I have full faith that the day you choose the right government, Ram Rajya can become a reality.”

BJP's Sushma Swaraj and Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had called each other better choices for Prime Minister than Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi respectively. But what seemed like mutual admiration was another round of sparring between the two leaders. This round started with Digvijaya Singh's tweets lashing out at Narendra Modi, who was quoted in a newspaper interview saying that India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru never attended the funeral of his Home Minister Sardar Patel in 1950. The Congress accused the BJP of trying to appropriate the legacy of Sardar Patel, known as India's iron man.

Digvijay Singh cited the biography of another Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, which had an account of Nehru attending Sardar Patel's funeral in Mumbai, to 'expose' Mr Modi's claims. Calling Modi a 'liar', the Congress leader tweeted: "Couldn't BJP find a better leader? What's wrong with Sushma (Swaraj)?" Hours later, Sushma tweeted her response, "Even I think Digvijay Singhji is a better candidate than Rahul Gandhi."

Counting chickens before they are hatched is a familiar human frailty. And as elections draw near, there are many rehearsing their speeches from the ramparts of Red Fort, in the not unreasonable expectation that dame luck may not just smile but wink at them at the polling booths, thanks to a lame duck government. With poll after opinion poll predicting that virtually 250 seats of the 543 seats in the next Lok Sabha may be bagged by non-Congress, non-BJP parties -- with Tamil Nadu 40 of them – the straws are somewhat leaning towards AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa. Is she a more acceptable bet than Narendra Modi? The fact that she has not met Modi on three occasions, nor sent her representatives to Modi’s rallies in Tamil Nadu suggests that the flame of hope burns bright more than just one Gujarati’s heart.

CBI Director Ranjit Sinha made out a case for legalising betting in sports, arguing, “if you can’t prevent rape, enjoy it.” After the social media went viral on his comments, he apologised saying while making a point he just used a proverb!

After the Nibhaya case, more and more rape cases and misbehavior with women by the higher-ups in the society are being reported. The Tarun Tehelka and Justice Ganguly incidents are not isolated cases as we believe. They suggest even Editors and judges are not above such carnal acts. But the joke is that Union Minister Farooq Abdulla has expressed his displeasure over appointing lady secretaries. He said he was afraid of talking to her.

But the mother of all jokes is the Aam Aadmi Party forming government in Delhi with outside support from the Congress. The AAP has got 28 seats and with the 8 Congress seats, it is able to cobble up a simple majority. The irony is that Arvind Kejriwal, with his guru Anna Hazare, has launched a nation-wide movement against corruption, targeting the Congress government, and succeeded in throwing out the 15-year rule of Sheila Dikshit. The Congress is having the last laugh as AAP is forming a government with its support.