A carnival atmosphere

MPs come dressed in traditional attire

Sonjay, who belongs to Nyishi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, sported a customary tribal headgear that had on it the beak and feather of a hornbill.
His eye-catching headdress made many MPs curious. RJD chief Lalu Prasad almost touched it to have a feel of the beak, when Sonjay came to greet him after taking oath.
But BJP MP Maneka Gandhi, a vociferous animal-rights and wildlife activist, was not amused. When Gandhi was passing by Sonjay in the corridor of the Parliament, she stopped briefly. “This is illegal,” she said, pointing at the AP MP’s ‘hornbill-hat’. After Sonjay heard about Gandhi’s remark, he rushed to catch up with her and explained the firebrand conservationist that the beak he was wearing is not an original, but a wooden one.
The other MPs also looked elegant in their attire. Six TDP MPs from Andhra Pradesh were all dressed in blazing yellow shirts with matching scarves and white trousers.
Congress MP from Kerala and MoS for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor sported a tricolour ‘angabastram’ and a ‘veshti’. Deepa Dasmunshi, wife of former minister P R Dasmunshi, dazzled with her elegant jewellries. Ranee Narah, a Congress MP from Assam, wore an elegant traditional mekhela-chador. Cricketer-turned-MP Mohammed Azharuddin tried to look like a perfect politician in a steel-grey Nehru jacket and white ‘kurta-pyjama’. Priyanka Gandhi, who came with husband Robert Vadra, looked elegant in the visitor’s gallery in a bright green saree. She watched the proceedings for nearly half-an-hour and left after her mother Sonia Gandhi took oath.
The Lok Sabha sounded like a ‘Tower of Babel’ with the newly-elected MPs taking oath in myriad languages — reflecting the linguistic mosaic of the polyglot nation. Home Minister P Chidambaram, a Congress MP from Tamil Nadu, took oath in Tamil. So did DMK ministers and MPs like M K Azhagiri, A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran.
Sumitra Mahajan and Kabindra Purkayastha of the BJP took oath in ancient language Sanskrit.