Lalu's two bits on Lokpal keep Lok Sabha in splits

New Delhi: In a tense Lok Sabha, Lalu Prasad Yadav brought some smiles as he objected to the Lokpal Bill in his inimitable style on Thursday evening.

The RJD leader had risen to say that the Bill should not be hurried with. He took objection to activist Anna Hazare bringing pressure on Parliament with a deadline to pass the Bill, saying that the House could not be held to ransom with the threat of an agitation.  "What is the hurry to pass the Bill...Let us study this Bill...don't make us do the wrong thing for fear of an agitation...an agitation cannot run the country," Mr Yadav said, making a frontal attack on activist Anna Hazare for putting pressure of a deadline on Parliament to pass the Bill.

He said Team Anna had repeatedly alluded to many MPs as being corrupt. And then, all of a sudden, said, "Lalu Prasad Yadav was born in 1948. The British ran away before I arrived." In the Treasury Benches Congress President Sonia Gandhi smiled. In the opposition Benches, Sushma Swaraj, who had just made a fiery appeal to the government to withdraw the Bill it has tabled, smiled too.

Mr Yadav's speech elicited many more chuckles before the RJD leader was asked to wrap up his comments to allow others to speak.

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