The 1857 flop story

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s show on 1857 was jinxed from the start. The gala event was first planned at Vijay Chowk and the Speaker’s office had chalked out all the details, even prepared the invitations. But it forgot all about security requirements. When the plan reached security officials, they vetoed the idea of the President, Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi and other VIPs wading through the crowd to reach their seats. Numerous other loopholes were pointed out, leaving the Speaker’s office quite annoyed. Matters reached such a pass that the PMO intervened to get the venue shifted to National Stadium. If this was not enough, a brief spell of rain played spoilsport on the day of the function. Most of the 5,000 seats were unoccupied as very few turned up. Officials, however, were happy at the turn of events as they would have faced a a traffic nightmare if the intended audience had actually turned up —- the car park was already overflowing with a string of cars that formed the Speaker’s entourage, apparently ferrying his guests.