It rains poetry, couplets, Bollywood numbers on last day of Uttar Pradesh assembly’s monsoon session

Dollops of wit and humour laced with couplets, poetry and Bollywood numbers gave the final day of the Monsoon session moments full of mirth in the state assembly on Friday.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath and leader of Opposition Akhilesh Yadav were at the forefront in giving the House proceedings a witty touch during the concluding debate on flood and drought.

Taking a jibe at Akhilesh Yadav by quoting noted Hindi poet Dushyant Kumar to make his point that the SP leader had lost his ground, Adityanath said: “Tumhare paaon ke neeche koi zameen nahin, kamaal yeh hai ki phir bhi tumhe yakeen nahin. (There is no ground under your feet, but still you do not realise this.)

Sticking to verse, he continued the poetic attack, this time referring to Tulsidas’s couplet “samrath ko nahi dosh gosain” (An undeserving person getting a plum post).

Quoting litterateur Ram Kumar Verma, the chief minister then fired another poetic salvo, “Hey gram devta namaskar, sone chaandi sey nahi kintu tumney mitti sey pyar kiya, hey gram devta namaskar”.

The soney-chandi (gold-silver) reference also resonated as Yogi said people born with a silver spoon in their mouth will not understand the problems of farmers as they cannot differentiate between kharif and rabi crop and have no knowledge of minimum support price.

Taking criticism by the horns, he said the leader of the opposition should know that during his government, bulls were sent to slaughterhouses while under the BJP government the bulls are considered livestock of the farming community.

For his part, Akhilesh referred to a Bollywood song to take a dig at his former alliance partner Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar.

“One of our allies has changed his orbit these days,” Akhilesh said.

“Earlier, when he used to move with me during the election campaign he used to sing “chal sanyasi mandir mein (song from the 1975 movie Sanyasi starring Manoj Kumar and Hema Malini). I will urge the former ally to complete the song,” the Samajwadi Party president quipped.

Rajbhar rose from his seat to counter Akhilesh with lines from another Bollywood number: “Mere angney mein tumhara kya kaam hain” (from the 1981 hit movie Laawaris starring Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman).”

Using the same lines, Akhilesh hit back at Rajbhar and said he went to meet the chief minister to know about oath ceremony, he was told “mere angney mein tumahara kya kaam hai” (what work do you have in my backyard).

Samajwadi Party’s Jaswant Nagar MLA Shivpal Yadav came out in support of his nephew Akhilesh to tell chief minister to induct Rajbhar into the cabinet or else he might join hands with the Samajwadi Party.

At this, the chief minister told Shivpal Yadav that he should have enlightened his nephew over the political matters. Shivpal replied that Akhilesh became an engineer and the chief Minister (2012-17).

Amid the war of verses, Akhilesh drew a contrast between dreams and the ground realities.

“The BJP government has failed to control the bulls that are running free on the roads killing and injuring people. On the other hand, the BJP leaders are showing the dream of one trillion economy and investment to the people,” he said.