JOIN USCricketing legend and Rajya Sabha MP Sachin Tendulkar received quite a few bouncers from fellow Parliamentarian P Rajeev of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) for absenteeism during the last session, but on the first day of the Winter Session, it was all bonhomie.
However, actor Rekha, who also faced the ire of the House for not attending the proceedings during the last session, was missing.
Tendulkar was seated in the Rajya Sabha before 11am when Rajeev walked up to him and started a conversation. Showing no acrimony, the MPs chatted for about 10 minutes before Chairman Hamid Ansari called the House into order.
Tendulkar and Rajeev discussed about Kerala and the former’s football club “Kerala Blasters”. The cricketer is likely to attend the House proceedings on Tuesday also.
“We had a good chat today. He knows what I had raised was an issue and there was nothing personal against him. I was telling him that he has now become a half-Malayali by owning the Kerala Blasters,” Rajeev told Deccan Herald.
The duo continued their conversation in the Rajya Sabha lobby, too.
Rajeev had on August 8 raised the issue of Tendulkar and Rekha’s absence, both nominated to the Upper House by the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The same day Tendulkar attended a function in Vigyan Bhavan, barely two km from Parliament House.
Following an uproar from MPs, Tendulkar and Rekha had to send letters to the Chairman seeking leave following which they were granted permission. Tendulkar had then cited his brother's illness to seek leave.
As the cricketer walked out along with Congress MP and a BCCI functionary Rajeev Shukla, mediapersons sought response from him on the Mudgal Committee report on match-fixing in IPL, whether he will attend RS again and about raising people’s issues.
While he refused to comment on the Mudgal committee report saying the Supreme Court was hearing the case, Tendulkar said he would raise issues which he feels was appropriate.
Other absentees on the first day of the winter session included Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress MP Digvijay Singh, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan, among others.