New Delhi : Congress leaders led by their president, Sonia Gandhi, and son Rahul walked up to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha on Monday and enquired about her well-being after noticing that she had difficulty in walking and had to be helped into her seat.
Sonia was the first to reach out by walking to the government’s side to wish Sushma a fast recovery. Both had a small chat even as members on the ruling benches looked on with surprise until it dawned upon them that it was a courtesy call to enquire about Sushma’s health.
What followed was a stream of MPs and ministers going up to her to wish her a fast recovery.
Rahul was the first to follow his mother to speak to Sushma, while the others speaking to her included Congress group leader Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, Surpiya Sule (NCP) and Bhagwant Mann (AAP), as also ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Jitendra Singh and Haribhai Chaudhary.
It all happened during a 20-minute adjournment of the House over a ruckus created by the Congress members over the comment of a minister on Sonia becoming the Congress president because she had “white skin”. The atmosphere became so tense during the ruckus that Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had to adjourn the House for a while during the Question Hour and, hence, everyone was initially surprised at Sonia suddenly walking up to the government’s side, particularly since she was in focus during the ruckus.
Sushma, however, showed no signs of any kind of incapacity due to her reported knee injury as she made a 20-minute statement on Operation Rahat launched by the government to evacuate not only Indians from Yemen, but also the nationals of the US, UK, France and Russia.
