The pens remained capped, the notebooks lay on the tables unopened. Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s first interaction with reporters after the spectacular victory of the Congress in the 2009 general election was just that — an interaction at which she came, she saw and she said very little.
Gandhi answered just three questions. One was on whether she had known the Congress would win so many seats. “We were expecting 150 to 160 seats. But when we heard the BJP was also getting around that number, we knew we were ahead,” she said.
And did she think at any time that the Congress would get fewer seats than the BJP? “Never” she said stoutly.
She was also asked about the Women’s Reservation Bill that envisages a third of the seats in state legislatures and Parliament being reserved. Would it ever see the light of day — after all, there are so many people offering arguments against it? Gandhi said there was reason to worry because there was no consensus on the legislation but added that “these are just excuses”, presumably referring to arguments that social equity would not be served by the Bill in its current form.
But the food was good, the service impeccable and the conversation scintillating in the cavernous Convention Centre of the Ashok Hotel in Delhi, where attention had been lavished on every detail.
The first to walk into the hall was the diminutive Minister for Tourism, Selja. “Can you smell the mogra ?” she asked a handful of reporters anxiously. Apparently special jasmine essential oil had been procured to make the room fragrant. Flowers had been banked high at every table and a live jal tarang-tabla recital served as background music, wasted on tone-deaf reporters who had an appetite only for news and food, in that order.
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The guest list was chosen carefully: spokesmen, past and present, party general secretaries, and current Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni were the only invitees, along with 300 or so reporters. Instructions had been issued: no TV cameras, no photographers, only a thanksgiving that was not to be reported.
Gandhi arrived after the soup had been served (you had a choice of three). The food that was served represented all the popular cuisines — maccher jhol from the East, appams and stew, gatte ki sabzi, pasta, of course, Hong Kong Chinese, and food from Awadh. There was a vast array of desserts: rabri and jalebi, lemon cheesecake and three flavours of kulfi.
But reporters would have cheerfully foregone the food if Gandhi had been more accessible. But they were seated at round tables: she arrived, went straight to one of the tables, said hello to everyone, got their names (many proffered visiting cards) and then raced to the next table. She managed to cover all the tables, taking one or two questions in all, and then sat down at the high table, surrounded by her team, to have her own lunch.
Her security wore black, she wore brown. She ate sparingly, accepted more visiting cards cheerfully, dimpled charmingly and left after ensuring everyone had eaten. The ministers and general secretaries lingered, but they, too, left soon after. All that was left behind was the sound of the jal tarang .