MPs or Monkeys in Pyjamas?

Last week, our elected reps in parliament made another abortive attempt at destroying democracy in the country. In the past, they have tried to divide the nation on regional lines and have been ignoring the governance mandate thrust on them by the hapless citizens of this country. Our political affairs correspondent Srinivasan Giant caught up with Pungee lal, a 7-time MP, who is the head of the Politicians Association of India, a body of politicians and asked about the sad state of politics in the country. Here is the exclusive interview:

SG: To begin with, last why did you folks create such a ruckus in parliament last week?

PL: Oh, it was essential to that. We were worried about the poor people of the country. Infact, many of us are so much worried about the citizens of India that we are unable to sleep and..

SG: Oh come Mr. Pungee, we all know that this is all rubbish…can we have the truth, please?

PL: You didn’t let me finish. I was saying that since most of us are unable to bear the plight of the poor, we are not able to sleep and so we loose our temper very often in the house. The problem is that we are unable to get enough sleep due to depression and that's affecting our performance in the house.

SG: Is that the reason why you sleep, fight and waste time in the house?

PL: Precisely, we are also human after all. Besides, sometimes we are so much involved in our work that we get carried away, break furniture, thrash opposing party members, tear papers, abuse the chair and generally wreck havoc.

SG: what a flimsy excuse. If you are so concerned by the plight of the average Indian, why don’t you do something about it?

PL: That's for the government to do.

SG: But you are part of the ruling United Pyjama Alliance, aren’t you?

PL: Oh is it? Then it is because the opposition Non Descript Alliance does not allow us to work. They stall proceedings and try and prevent us from doing anything.

SG: So why don’t you do something about it?

PL: Oh we do. The other day one fellow tried to prevent one of our ministers from speaking. I went up to him, dragged him by his dhothi to the well of the house and thrashed him to pulp. The incident resulted in a severe wardrobe malfunction that was telecast by the national broadcaster live, and I had to stop. You should have seen how I thrashed the dude. I was angry that the guy was trying to stop our minister from speaking on an important issue like stray dog welfare.

SG: Why are you folks trying to divide the country on the regional lines? The average Indian does not like insiders or outsiders splitting them.

PL: I agree fully. We however have a different take on it. You see sometimes you have to make such statements to test the unity of our people. Someone has to remind them to be united everytime and not to be swayed by emotions and we are doing this for our country.