When I first entered Parliament, they thought I was the driver. As I drove past the barricades of the Vijay Chowk entrance, the pompously-clad security detail ushered my car to the parking lot. As a first-time MP representing Ambedkar Nagar, a mainly agrarian and rural constituency in the heart of eastern Uttar Pradesh, I didn’t know what to expect from the next five years. I didn’t know if what I said in Delhi held any weight in Ambedkar Nagar, or if all they wanted was a sadak-kharanja-makaan — things that an MP cannot guarantee. Then there was the unfamiliarity of it all — the grandeur of the halls, the complexity of the rules, the nuances of MP culture — that would make any eastern UP chap feel out of place.
