UPA brass mark two more years in same boat

Sonia Gandhi likes mutton biryani but would rather push the meat aside than gnaw on it in public. She prefers mango kulfi over jalebi. Rahul Gandhi jiggles his foot a lot while eating. Lalu Prasad had, on the advice of his guru, gone off non-vegetarian food during the Bihar Assembly elections, but he’s back to being one and likes it a lot, especially fried fish. And T R Baalu eats – guess what? Curd rice.

Eating quirks were the most important takeaway from the dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to mark two years of the second stint of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Both UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi and Singh emphasised their commitment to clear contentious legislation in the monsoon session of Parliament – the land acquisition bill, the rehabilitation and resettlement bill, legislation to create a lok pal and give shape to the Livelihood Mission to enable the formation of self-help groups able to access banks for capital.

Both pledged to end corruption, deepen accountability and put curbs on discretionary quotas of public officials.

Talking to reporters, the PM said he had not forgotten his promise to hold another cabinet reshuffle. “When it happens, you will know about it,” he said, with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

On Pakistan, he said the meetings of the commerce and home secretaries was a hopeful beginning in normalisation of ties with that country but “relations are prone to accidents”. On corruption, he said there was no question of the government being demoralised. “There have been a few aberrations but we are determined to fight it.”

Politically, the signal was that all the allies the UPA had started with were still on board. At dinner, the PM was flanked by Samajwadi Party leader Mohan Singh on one side and National Conference leader and Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on the other. Sonia Gandhi had Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader TR Baalu to her left and Farooq Abdullah to her right. A K Antony and Pranab Mukherjee, the two most important managers in government, sat at Gandhi’s table with Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad. The Prime Minister had Rahul Gandhi and home minister P Chidambaram at his table.

Several Congress chief ministers attended the dinner, including Maharashtra’s Prithviraj Chavan and Kerala’s Oommen Chandy.