The House had to be adjourned for a day in the furore that followed the Prime Minister\'s remark that the parliament was a den of smugglers, or words to that effect. "Name them, prosecute them," chanted opposition lawmakers rather disingenuously. They needn\'t have worried, Koirala seems to have been alluding to alleged crooks within his own party.

That admission took some time in coming. Rajendra Kharel, an NC lawmaker said to be a Bhattarai loyalist, had once raised this issue most eloquently, "All our leaders know who the shady people in our party are. But why do they keep nominating them election after election? Why do they have to be made ministers in every cabinet formation or reshuffle?" Good point. Unfortunately the Prime Minister decided not to be too specific. He did not name names. But then, why did he stir a hornet\'s nest, or shall we say, a smuggler\'s den? One reason could be that he was trying to get back at some of his erstwhile cronies who were trying to oust him. In that case, why didn\'t he spill the beans? Do we hear skeletons rattling in Koirala\'s own inner circle?

Meanwhile, with the cabinet grant of a hefty raise in the allowances for our hard-working MPs, they will now be earning about Rs 32,000 a month. Not bad, but depending on the parties they belong to, MPs may not be allowed to take it all home-some of them will have to pay "party tax".

But the really big question in everyone\'s mind is this: will it control corruption? We now know from the civil service salary hike that this is quite unlikely. Raising salaries just made some of them more greedy. Besides, if the MPs are indeed busy with extracurricular smuggling as Koirala alleges, 32 grand is small change. Yes, Prime Minister. Now what, Prime Minister?