They came to PM, seeking a miracle

Catering techonology graduate and Delhi resident Arvind Razdan, 22, has not been selected by ITDC “though I am meritorious”. He tells this to the Prime Minister and breaks down, sobbing unselfconsciously.

A delegation of the workers union of the Fertilizer Corporation of India’s Ramagundam project in Andhra Pradesh’s Karimnagar district wants the Prime Minister to sanction Rs 688 crore for the revamping of the unit, “or else hundreds of workers will starve”.

A strapping young lad from western Uttar Pradesh pushes a bunch of papers under the Prime Minister’s nose and tells him he needs police protection because “the local DM will get me killed in the next 30 days”. He was barely through with his litany when SPG personnel yanked him to make way for the next petitioner. Some 450 salvation seekers thronged No 7, Race Course Road, this morning for an audience with Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral.

For close to two hours, Gujral lent an ear to the blind, the maimed, the crippled, the dispossessed and the disinherited.

Around 200 of those who sought the Prime Minister’s shoulder to cry on had to be turned back because of the tyranny of his engagement diary: he had to terminate the first of his Friday public durbars to attend a meeting.