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When a debate gets really heated in the House — in Parliament or state assemblies — it is hard for some of our earnest lawmakers to keep their shirts on.
The state legislator who was suspended recently from the Karnataka Vidhan Soudha for taking off his shirt and slinging it over his shoulder while shouting slogans in the well of the House evidently had something up his sleeve.
Perhaps he was trying to tell the treasury and opposition benches that he was willing to give the shirt off his back for his party’s beliefs. That did not quite turn out to be necessary as the lawmaker was persuaded to put his shirt back on by his fellow party members, but at least he got a chance to lay bare the extent of his loyalty.
Instances of Indian lawmakers getting hot under the collar are not unusual although matters rarely take such a turn.
In 2014, however, two legislators also doffed their shirts in the UP assembly protesting against non-payment of dues to sugarcane farmers, predictably eliciting an off-the-cuff riposte from a famously combative minister about their birthday suits.
There were murmurs about vested interests, but any allegations of naked ambition were clearly unwarranted. The bottomline is: getting shirty at the drop of a hat can create the impression that protesters are all talk and no trousers. Idiomatically speaking, of course.
The state legislator who was suspended recently from the Karnataka Vidhan Soudha for taking off his shirt and slinging it over his shoulder while shouting slogans in the well of the House evidently had something up his sleeve.
Perhaps he was trying to tell the treasury and opposition benches that he was willing to give the shirt off his back for his party’s beliefs. That did not quite turn out to be necessary as the lawmaker was persuaded to put his shirt back on by his fellow party members, but at least he got a chance to lay bare the extent of his loyalty.
Instances of Indian lawmakers getting hot under the collar are not unusual although matters rarely take such a turn.
In 2014, however, two legislators also doffed their shirts in the UP assembly protesting against non-payment of dues to sugarcane farmers, predictably eliciting an off-the-cuff riposte from a famously combative minister about their birthday suits.
There were murmurs about vested interests, but any allegations of naked ambition were clearly unwarranted. The bottomline is: getting shirty at the drop of a hat can create the impression that protesters are all talk and no trousers. Idiomatically speaking, of course.