New Delhi, July 23 - It was a camouflaged barb, but Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan immediately guessed the intended target and pounced on journalist-cum-Rajya Sabha MP Chandan Mitra and asked him not to 'insinuate'.

Mitra, in an obvious swipe at Communications and Information Technology Minister A. Raja, chose to compliment Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for naming Sachin Pilot as the minister of state of the department.

Mitra began his speech in the upper house during the debate on the communication and IT ministry's demands for budgetary grants by complimenting the prime minister on his choice of Sachin Pilot as junior minister, but avoided referring to cabinet minister A. Raja.

Raja, of the DMK, courted controversy in the previous government when as cabinet minister of the same ministry, he was charged with not maintaining transparency in the award of WiMax franchises to certain companies for BSNL.

The Rajya Sabha deputy chairman, guessing Mitra's import, immediately asked him 'not to insinuate' about anyone. The BJP MP merely replied: 'I am not insinuating, I am only complimenting the prime minister.'

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Marxist worries over Trinamool

Inside parliament, Communist MPs don't hesitate to criticise the government for virtually everything, but in the corridors of the sprawling complex the comrades, especially from West Bengal, have other worries.

Animated groups of Left MPs will often be found debating among themselves how to regain political ground in the state in the wake of the drubbing at the hands of the Trinamool Congress during the April-May general elections.