Poltu da drowns in his Himachali cap , VB dozed !

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pranab mukherjee vidhan sabhaShimla : While honouring President Pranab Mukherjee at the golden jubilee celebrations of the Himachal Pradesh assembly in Shimla on Friday there were some faux paus committed .

 We all know at 5 foot 3 Pranab Da is a small man . But it did not occur to the organisers of this special occasion that the President should have been offered a small cap which fitted on his tiny head smartly .

 But instead the speaker BB Butail placed a giant sized cap on the head of the first citizen of the country which made poor Poltu da look rather comical .

 Now why was such a dull shawl presented to him . We all know that Himachal makes beautifully patterned and richly coloured woollen Kinnaur and Kullu shawls .

 But no , some bored babu in the vidhan sabha chose to present a dull and nondescript shawl to the first citizen of India .

 The memento presented to him looked somewhat bizarre , huge and bulky . So that viewers on television all over the country feared it would fall on the heads of the VVIPs on stage including the President .

 It was also odd watching the President passing on the copies of books to the other members on stage . Not even sure if chief minister Virbhadra Singh and leader of the opposition P K Dhumal even thanked Pranab da for this gesture .

 And of course the biggest embarrassment was the host chief minister Virbhadra Singh who fell asleep several times during the short programme . He often stole a few winks while the President spoke with a lot of intensity and fervour .