There are countless photographs doing the rounds online of MLAs dozing off or napping in the Kerala Legislative Assembly. The latest one going viral is the image of a young elected representative sleeping while Kerala Governor P Sathasivam delivered his inaugural address on Thursday.
The trolls had such a field day with this one that Thrithala MLA VT Balram’s came up with an earnest clarification as to why MLAs are caught napping in the assembly in his latest Facebook post.
He was replying to Deepa Nishanth – lecturer at Kerala Varma College in Thrissur – who had posted a photograph of Balram waking up fellow MLA Eldose Kunnapally who had dozed off during the Governor’s speech in the Assembly.
.In his post, Balram took pains to explain how natural it is to grab some shut-eye, when one is tired… and, well, MLAs are no exception: “Since yesterday marked the beginning of the assembly session, MLAs who have busy work-schedules, tend to reach on time by losing out on their sleep. They travel either by train or car in the night so as to make it by 8 in the morning, when the assembly is all set to begin. It is but natural then to succumb to sheer fatigue.”
He also criticised the trolls by pointing out that Eldose Kunnapally had a splitting headache at that time, and the Governor’s speech went on for more than two hours.
“During the speech others have nothing to do but listen. It is hence common to nap for a while and that there was no need to humiliate them for that,” he adds.
Tongue-in-cheek, he opined that had it been him in the in the place of Eldose, the Sangh Parivar and CPI (M) supporters would have trolled him for decades.
“If I was the one caught sleeping, the Sanghis and comrades would have had a celebration, and each time I stood up to criticize them, they would have pasted this photo below,” Balram wrote.
