A spate of speculative stories flooded the media during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to Andhra Pradesh about his choice of constituency for election to the Lok Sabha.

What many don't realize is that Singh is following in the footsteps of none other than party icon Indira Gandhi. When she first became Prime Minister in January 1966 after Lal Bahadur Shastri's sudden death, she was a member of the Rajya Sabha. She had never contested a Lok Sabha election despite being politically active in the Congress.

She ran the country as a Rajya Sabha MP for more than a year, till the general elections in February 1967, to be specific. It was then that she chose her late husband's constituency, Rae Bareli, contested the polls and won. That was her first entry into the Lok Sabha.

Efforts have been on to spook Singh into jumping into a Lok Sabha bypoll to "legitimize" his position with an election to the "People's House." Offers have come from Assam and Andhra Pradesh from so-called loyal Congressmen who gallantly announced they would vacate their seat for the PM.

But after his sorry experience in 1999, when he was forced against his will to fight the South Delhi seat which he lost thanks to in-party sabotage, Singh has been trying to avoid being rushed into picking out a Lok Sabha constituency to contest from.

Now that he's been filled in by well-wishers on relevant details from the pages of Congress history, he's more relaxed. Congress president Sonia Gandhi had to crack the whip to get her truant MPs to attend the three-day orientation workshop the party organized for new entrants to Parliament last week.

Most of them played hooky at the first session, not realising perhaps that both Sonia and Manmohan Singh were going to be present. In fact, when Sonia and Singh walked in, barely two dozen MPs were present.

Sonia did not conceal her displeasure. And urgent summons went out over cell phones to the missing MPs to rush to Parliament House. They trooped in like errant schoolboys and girls a little later and were treated to icy looks from Sonia who is a stickler for attendance and punctuality.

Needless to say, subsequent sessions were well attended. No MP dared stay away, for fear of being caught again by Sonia. Although she did not show up on the other days, she kept a vigilant eye from afar. Attendance was marked for every session and a daily report sent to 10, Janpath for her perusal.

Now that the information and broadcasting ministry's select Mahadev Road Auditorium is no longer available to them to indulge their weakness for Hindi films, former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and his family are rediscovering public cinema.

Father and daughter sneaked off to a well-known hall in Lutyens' Delhi last week for a late night show of Lakshya. The fly in the ointment was Advani's security, which insisted on accompanying them into the auditorium to guard them as they watched the movie.

Advani's discomfort was acute, till he found a co-traveller during the intermission. He discovered Manmohan Singh's daughter in the same predicament. She had come for the same late night show, accompanied by her newly appointed SPG men, and was suffering embarrassment pangs.

It made for easy conversation across the political divide with the daughters exchanging notes about the hassles of intrusive security and Advani pitching in for good measure.

In his eagerness to ensure that his government delivers, Manmohan Singh is setting himself an increasingly heavy load of homework. One of his latest directives to his ministers is to send their answers to starred Parliament questions to the PMO a day or two in advance so that he can go through them. The ministers are wondering when he finds the time to study all the queries and replies.

It's particularly hard work with starred questions because apart from the answers to the main questions, there are supplementaries to anticipate and they need written backgrounders and notes too.

As one minister pointed out, it takes him several hours to read and get briefed for his questions. The PM, he said, would have to burn the midnight oil to cope with Parliament questions in addition to all his other work. -By arrangement with Asian Age / New Delhi