Salim's puns on the BJP

As the Lok Sabha on Monday initiated a discussion on the "increasing incidents of intolerance", Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Mohammad Salim repeatedly got under the skin of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during his speech. At one point, Salim said he would have been happier had Home Minister Rajnath Singh become the prime minister instead of Narendra Modi. BJP members got angry but decided against shouting down Salim as they have been strictly instructed not to disrupt the winter session since the agenda of the government is to get important bills passed. Salim, however, didn't stop. He said vigyan (science), which he translated as "vishesh gyan" (special knowledge), was a casualty when intolerance in society increases. He added that the BJP had not come to its senses despite its "vihar" or "vishesh haar" (special loss) in the Bihar Assembly polls. While BJP members remained nonplussed, its Bihar MP Shatrughan Sinha burst into laughter. Salim quipped that only Sinha had understood the joke. Incidentally, Sinha has been unhappy with the BJP leadership as he was supposedly kept out of the loop during the party's Bihar election campaign.