Upper cut

Shashi Tharoor, who was filling in for the controversy-struck Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi at a session at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s annual general meeting and national conference, rarely finds himself at a loss for words. But he was bested by former bureaucrat N K Singh. In the course of his speech, Tharoor virtuously added that he was the only elected MP in the gathering that included Singh and Ravi Shankar Prasad, who are both Rajya Sabha MPs from the BJP. Singh’s riposte was that they, too, were elected but by other legislators and not directly by the people but he did wonder how an elected MP could consent to work under an “unelected” prime minister. Touche?