‘I LOOK AT THE POSITIVES AND MOVE ON’

It was her mother’s habit of limiting portions of food at the dining table that Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan put to use in Parliament. Soon after she took over, Mahajan not only replaced buffets with thalis but also instructed the staff to limit portions: “Instead of four pakoras, give two because it is always better to serve less than let food go waste,” she said. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi handpicked the soft-spoken Mahajan as Lok Sabha Speaker over many other candidates, there were doubts whether the then 71-year-old would be able to manage the House.

She is the longest-serving woman member in Parliament, currently in her eighth term. She has never lost a Lok Sabha election, her first win being in 1989. However, when it came to the assembly elections, she was thrice unlucky. She lost from Indore, a constituency which had returned her as an MP over and over again.

Despite consecutive wins, things have not been easy for Mahajan. If, in 2014, she had an impressive margin of over four lakh votes, in 2009 she barely managed to retain her seat. Envious of her dream run, there were many who wanted to see her out. Had the party not checked the inner sabotage, Mahajan may have stumbled. “Dushman bahut hain, there are many enemies, but I don’t waste time on them. I tread my path, look at the positives and move on,” Mahajan says philosophically.

Popularly known as Tai, the Marathi word for older sister, Mahajan has often played that role even with strangers and mediated to settle disputes. This took a toll on her husband, Jayant’s legal practice. He handled marital disputes, but Sumitra made him promise that he would let her counsel his clients against opting for divorce. Often she would resolve the conflict and her husband would be left holding a brief that never reached the courts.

However, her husband’s death took away her fun days of married life and put an end to ice-cream and shopping expeditions: “It was a post dinner ritual to ride pillion for ice-cream. And it was never one ice-cream, we would try many flavours at one go.”

After Jayant died, Mahajan has almost given up on ice-cream. Her enviable collection of saris, mostly Chanderis and Maheshwaris, is because her husband bought her so many, just like he did jewellery. The reason she has more ear studs than gold chains is because they were

POPULARLY KNOWN AS TAI, THE MARATHI WORD FOR OLDER SISTER, MAHAJAN HAS OFTEN PLAYED THAT ROLE AND MEDIATED TO SETTLE DISPUTES