Venkaiah Naidu turns Drill Master in BJP meet?

Is this class room or a RSS baithak or Shaka session? That’s how the BJP parliamentary party meeting ended in Parliament annex on Tuesday to the annoyment of BJP MPs, who mostly come from all hues and not necessarily from the field of RSS.

In what may have reminded them of their school days, over two dozen BJP MPs were called on at a party Parliamentary meeting on Tuesday and the lawmakers stood up one by one to explain why they skipped the vote on the land acquisition bill in Lok Sabha last week.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was also present at the meeting was conspicuously silent. Modi was earlier said to be upset with the party’s Rajya Sabha MPs for skipping the vote on the motion of thanks to the President for his speech at the joint session of Parliament.

The lawmakers, including Minister of State Babul Supriyo, faced embarrassing moments at the BJP’s parliamentary party meeting with parliamentary affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu calling out names of the MPs who gave the crucial session a miss despite the party issuing a whip.

Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi, Mumbai North Central MP Poonam Mahajan, Beed MP Pritam Munde (daughter of late Gopinath Munde) and Sidhi MP Rithi Pathak were among those pulled up for their absence. Shatrughan Sinha’s name too was called out but the actor-turned-politician was not present even at the meeting. Two MPs cited deaths in their family, a third claimed a wedding to be the reason behind his absence and Pathak said she was busy with Panchayat elections in Madhya Pradesh.