It was hurriedly decided to take her to the Army’s Research and Referral Hospital which is not far from the airport. When Mr Jaitley mentioned these luncheons to Ms Sule, she was quick to point out that despite their outings, the young MPs attended Parliament regularly and participated enthusiastically in the proceedings. They never fail to point out that Justice Lodha and his team are working out of an expensive suite in a five-star hotel, all at the BCCI’s expense. Sometimes, they are spoilt for choices — recently, they had to scurry from Ms Sule’s place to Shiromani Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujaral’s residence as both hosted a lunch on the same day. But in reality, the outspoken Justice Katju was handpicked by the BCCI because he has no qualms about taking on the apex court. Ms Irani got herself photographed in a handwoven sari, posted it on Twitter, tagged five people and tweeted “I support Indian weavers, here’s my jacquard fabricIwearHandloomlook”.

Ms Lekhi has even drafted designer Ritu Beri to design a line of outfits for Khadi emporiums in a bid to popularise the handspun fabric and has been instrumental in the setting up of a Khadi emporium outlet in the Parliament Annexe building. It was an open secret that it was Mr Shukla who had suggested Justice Katju to head the Press Council when the UPA-2 was in power. It also helps that Rajeev Shukla, Congress’ MP from Rajya Sabha and IPL chief, knows Justice Katju. Mrs Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmad Patel, immediately called up the Rashtrapati Bhavan whose team of doctors alerted the Army hospital as it obviously had no prior information about this VIP emergency visitor.While she has discovered the beauty of Indian handlooms, Ms Irani faces stiff competition from her party colleague and bête noire, Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Lekhi, who has been passionately involved in the promotion of khadi for some time now. She announced her arrival with a politically-correct social media campaign for the promotion of handloom fabrics.

The reason: Ms Sule and a host of young MPs, cutting across party lines, including Sushmita Dev of the Congress, Nishikant Dubey of the BJP and Samajwadi Party’s Neeraj Shekhar are one happy gang which is constantly out lunching when Parliament is in session. President Pranab Mukherjee, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, also intervened to ensure that Mrs Gandhi was attended to immediately.After lying low for nearly a month over what was widely perceived to be a step down from the ministry of human resource development, minister for textiles Smriti Irani has now started taking interestAfter lying low for nearly a month over what was widely perceived to be a step down from the ministry of human resource development, minister for textiles Smriti Irani has now started taking interest in her new portfolio. But the minister had better watch out.The writer is a Delhi-based journalistend.