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Once upon a time the news that a brat of a VVIP had gone in for a pair of shoes  worth its weight in gold created a sensation in political circles and the public domain and the media pouncing on the news tore up the brat into shreds.

Political opponents of the VVIP grabbed this news as ideal grist to their propaganda mill.

Meanwhile, a story about a much more expensive  pair of shoes – valued at  one lakh short of one million rupees or the worth of the pair of VVIP’s son six times over- acquired by a kid of a yahapalanaya ministerial one is making rounds in political circles these days. The purchase, they say, had been made by the kid when he accompanied his dad on an official visit to a foreign country.

Incidentally, the ministerial father of the lucky kid was among those who pontificated some time ago that it was a crime to spend tens of thousands on a fancy pair of shoes to satisfy a weird whim when the man in the street could not afford one decent meal a day!