You're a <i>raja,</i> not an interpreter

When Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee entered the Committee Room in North Block for the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) meeting on fuel price hike on Monday, he found Communications Minister A Raja already sitting there. Since he thought Raja wasn’t a member of the EGoM, he consulted a sheet of paper which had the names of the members. Once he was certain, he walked up to Raja to ask him what he was doing there. Raja said he was there to help Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister M K Alagiri — Alagiri and Raja are both DMK MPs — who was a member of the EGoM. Raja said he would translate from English to Tamil and vice versa for Alagiri. Mukherjee politely told Raja that Alagiri had never expressed his inability to communicate in English earlier, but if the fertilisers minister did have a problem, he himself would arrange for help. Alagiri gave a written presentation to the EGoM and when he needed help, he used the services of some officials present.