Dear Reader,Animals and animal metaphors wander into our speech in ways that should probably worry the animals. A macho man becomes a lion or tiger, a fool becomes a donkey, and the timid get cast as bheegi billis (scaredy cats)—a simile I’ve never quite understood. Urdu poet Rahat Indori captured it perfectly when he wrote, “Ajeeb rang tha majlis ka… safedposh uthe, kaane-kaane karne lage.” It was a strange gathering... even the elite began to howl.But even Indori might have blinked at a sitting MP doing an actual bhow bhow on camera. And not at a carnival or campaign rally but inside Parliament premises, mid-session, with tempers running equally high between treasury and opposition benches.It began on Monday, the first day of the Winter Session, when Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury brought a puppy in her car to Parliament. Asked about it, she said she was taking it to a vet. Asked once too often, she shot back, “Those sitting inside bite, dogs don’t.” The jab landed well. BJP members bristled, while Rahul Gandhi, with a shrug and a smile, remarked that pets weren’t allowed outside the complex, but inside seemed a different matter. “Dog is the main topic of today, I believe. What has the poor dog done?”NDA ally Ramdas Athawale, known for his humour (sometimes dark), made a satta versus kutta (power versus dog) jibe. “You keep bringing kutta here and we will continue to get satta,” was Athawale’s refrain, which some felt had rhyme but no reason.By Wednesday, when Chowdhury was asked about a possible privilege motion, she responded with a bhow bhow, leaving camerapersons momentarily unsure whether she was mocking the premise or merely leaning into it.BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala reacted by saying, “Maybe this language is spoken within Congress amongst Pidis.” And that, of course, revived the legend of Pidi. Rahul Gandhi’s 2017 tweet featuring his pet labrador had set off a small social-media avalanche. Omar Abdullah, himself a dog lover, joked about when Pidi would get a verified account. Rahul’s line—“Ppl been asking who tweets for this guy… it’s me… Pidi”—fed meme machines for weeks. Himanta Biswa Sarma, who had by then left the Congress, chimed in with his memory of Rahul feeding biscuits to the dog while Assam’s urgent issues waited.Pidi soon became a familiar figure—visible in Rahul’s car, trotting across lawns, occasionally the subject of chatter. Later came Noorie, the Jack Russell Terrier Rahul brought for Sonia Gandhi in 2023 after adopting her from a kennel in Goa. Lovely name—reminds me of the eponymous Hindi film and its title song.Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s retriever Luna also entered the family album. When Luna accompanied Rahul during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Haryana, Priyanka posted a photo captioned, “I see Luna has been kidnapped!” It amused me because my own schooldays were full of Lunas—the moped variety. Maybe that’s how the dog got her name. Or maybe from the Latin for moon. Who knows.Congress veteran Sitaram Kesri, meanwhile, was inseparable from his Pomeranians. One of them, Ruchi, was so attached to him that she reportedly stopped eating when he slipped into a coma and died the same day he passed away. Kesri was known to take them for ice cream at India Gate in his air-conditioned car.Then there is the greatest political pet story of all: Pranab Mukherjee’s dog Daku. In the 1980s, when Vajpayee and Pranab were neighbours in Lutyens’ Delhi, Daku got into a scuffle with Vajpayee’s dog during a morning walk and ended up biting Vajpayee’s hand. Sharmistha Mukherjee recounts in Pranab, My Father that Pranab, unaware of the incident, came straight to Parliament from the airport and saw Vajpayee with his hand bandaged. When he asked what happened, Vajpayee replied dryly, “Ye aapke kutte ki meharbani hai (“This is thanks to your dog)”. The incident made the news and even resurfaced in the 2021 film 83. Sharmistha notes that Daku earned his name by being “a law unto himself,” and recalls that Pranab—an unabashed dog lover—once broke down after recording in his diary that another family dog, Jimbo, had died.Renuka Chowdhury’s latest is just the latest example of how often animals get swept into political crossfire. Politicians’ fondness for more unconventional “transport companions” has also created headlines. In June 2024, Rajkumar Roat of the Bharat Adivasi Party tried riding a camel to his oath ceremony but was stopped by police. Vajpayee famously rode a bullock cart to Parliament in 1973 to protest rising fuel prices. In 2016, BJP MP Ram Prasad Sharma rode a horse to protest Delhi’s odd-even traffic rule.Parliament has contended with its own non-pet animals too. Lalu Prasad Yadav used to feed bananas to monkeys from his office, until the staff asked him to stop because the monkey menace was already bad enough. Committees studied the issue, circulars were issued, experts consulted. Pranab Mukherjee even suggested planting more fruit trees outside Delhi to lure the monkeys away from the complex.Beyond Parliament, political pets live full lives. Abhishek Singhvi once wrote a tender blog post about Azlan, his late labrador, whom he called the family’s “eldest son”. Salman Khurshid’s home in Okhla was reported to house nearly 300 animals—dogs, cats, birds, goats, rabbits—each with names, routines, and fan clubs.Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, regularly invokes animals in his public persona, especially indigenous dog breeds. In Mann Ki Baat, he has urged citizens and security agencies to adopt mudhol hounds, Rampur hounds, kombais, and pandikonas. Pictures of him with cows, peacocks, and even a tiger have circulated widely.At a 2019 rally, Modi recalled that a Congress leader once called him a pagal kutta. In 2018, Amit Shah offered his now-famous list—snake, mongoose, cat, dog—as shorthand for opposition parties supposedly banding together against “the Modi flood”. When criticised, he clarified that he merely named animals that usually never cooperate.The truth is simple: politics, politicians, and pets share a long, occasionally absurd, always entertaining coexistence. The stories will keep coming.Write in with yours. Until the next newsletter.Anand Mishra | Political Editor, FrontlineWe hope you’ve been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! Mail us at frontline@thehindu.co.inCONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS