Messing with media
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s relationship with the media is becoming irreparable. At a recent function to honour meritorious children in Lucknow, the chief minister encouraged the children to work hard. “If you study hard, you will achieve great heights. If you cheat in examinations, you cannot become an Indian Administrative Service officer though you can become a journalist,” he said, leaving the gathering stunned. Having insulted the media, Mr Yadav cast a glance at the press gallery and tried to cover the damage with a smile, but the scribes were not amused. The relationship between the chief minister and the media has been in tatters ever since the Saifai Mahotsav was held last year. The media highlighted the Bollywood tamasha at the Mahotsav and contrasted it with the children dying in riot relief camps. Since that incident, the Chief Minister has not spared an opportunity to insult and ridicule scribes and has even instructed his security to keep mediapersons at bay. The Samajwadi Party debacle in the Lok Sabha elections has added to the bitterness and the party blames its drubbing on the media.
Uneasy heads
The Centre and state’s relationship in the federal form of governance has been debated frequently. The new challenge for Assam’s bureaucracy, however, seems to be how to handle the egos of politicians in this unenviable relationship. This came to light last week when the surface transport ministry convened a meeting in consultation with its counterparts in Assam — the public works department — to review the progress on construction and repair of roads. But the Gogoi government decided to boycott the meeting just because Union surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari nominated Union minister of state for sports and youth welfare Sarbananda Sonowal, who is also an MP from Assam, to chair the meeting in his absence.
Mr Sonowal, who was earlier president of the Assam BJP, had criticised Mr Gogoi and had threatened to dislodge him from power. Mr Sonowal, now as Union minister, obviously wanted to have a say in the works of the Central government in Assam. Mr Gogoi’s ministers are said to have decided not to cooperate with Mr Sonowal. This has led to a serious problem for bureaucrats as they have to get their schemes cleared by New Delhi, for which the progress has to be reviewed. But who will deal with the massive egos of politicians?
The flip side of power
Orissa revenue minister Bijoyshree Routray believed that if one is in power, then s/he can bend rules to suit one’s own interest. But he is being proved wrong, for once. In 1986, Mr Routray availed a government plot in the name of his wife, Dr Jyoti Routray, for opening a nursing home. After seven years, he converted it into his residence. After the media brought this to light, the minister was in a soup, evoking strong criticism from all quarters, including members of his own party, the Biju Janata Dal. On September 1, the GAD served a show-cause notice to the Routray family on why the land should not be brought back to the government register for its misuse.
Left in the lurch, the minister, on September 2, hung a signboard on the backyard of his house that read “Charitable Hospital”. A few local slum people with tablet strips and medicine bottles in their hands were sighted loitering in front of the newly-opened hospital. But when the ever-chasing mediapersons asked the slum people why they had come there, they said, “We were asked to visit the place.” This proved that it was an orchestrated show. Mr Routray was at his wit’s end when the health department clarified that the minister’s family had taken no permission to open a charitable hospital and an inquiry will be conducted on the use of the land as per official norm. Perhaps, Mr Routray is devising new ways of dodging this matter.
The last laugh
Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhupesh Baghel was shocked when his “foolproof” plan to apparently counter his archrival, former chief minister Ajit Jogi, boomeranged. If insiders in the rival camps are to be believed, Mr Baghel, along with Congress Legislature Party leader T.S. Singhdeo, pondered a plan which would lead to a win-win situation — whatever be the outcome of the bypoll, slated for September 13. His “foolproof” plan was to field former MLA Manturam Pawar, considered a Jogi loyalist, as party candidate in the Antagarh (Scheduled Tribe) Assembly constituency byelection. The strategy behind choosing a man from the Jogi camp was if he wins, the credit would go to the Pradesh Congress Committee president, and if he loses, the former chief minister would suffer a loss of face. A rather simplistic “heads I win, tails you lose” formula.
But to Mr Baghel’s dismay, one fine morning, Mr Pawar proceeded to the district election office and withdrew his nomination before going “missing”.
Exasperated, Mr Baghel cried foul, blaming the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in public and Mr Jogi in his confidential report to the party high command. Although Mr Jogi categorically denied his role in the development, his followers can’t stop smiling. “Mr Baghel could think of only two options — a loss or victory of the Congress in the byelections to corner Mr Jogi. But, he could not imagine that there is a third option as well wherein the Congress won’t be there in the contest, making his two options redundant,” a Jogi loyalist quipped.
