Inside track — Untouchability, politically incorrect 4

The new avatar of the JD will in all probability be Laloo Prasad’s RJD. As the polling date approaches Laloo will have swallowed up the JD leaving Deve Gowda, Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan to stew in their own juice.

The Gandhis’ guardian

Surely, Sonia Gandhi has enough on her plate keeping the flame going for Pandit Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi without also trying to usurp Sanjay’s legacy from his widow Maneka Gandhi. Sonia has taken over as president of the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Fund. A year back, Sonia’s Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) began planting trees on Sanjay’s Gandhi’s birth anniversary and this year the RGF organised a dog show as well to mark Sanjay’s birthday — both are Maneka’s pet projects.

While Congressmen are still wondering whether Sonia will campaign in the coming elections, the joint director of SPG in charge of Sonia’s security believes she will. He has requested for extra security forces till February, since he thinks that Sonia will campaign in select constituencies.

Partisan Prasar Bharati

The Gujral Government has just granted a 15 to 20 per cent pay hike to the programme implementation and engineering staff of Doordarshan. Some may see this generosity after the announcement of elections as a poll sop to DD employees on behalf of the UF Government.

DD’s CEO S.S. Gill’s instruction to employees to play down the BJP is becoming very apparent in its nightly news bulletins as is the pro-UF and pro-RJD slant of the news. Immediately after Laloo Yadav’s release from jail, DD carried a 10-minute programme just after the news portraying the fodder scam accused as a messiah and giving an idealised story of his life. When BJP president L.K. Advani held a press conference announcing his party’s poll plank, DD news covered the event for barely a minute, but the next day JD’s Jaipal Reddy was allowed to debunk Advani’s statement for some three-and-a-half minutes.

The claim is that the Prasar Bharti Board has been modelled on BBC, but it conveniently ignores the fact that in BBC the board members are not allowed to be active journalists. Prasar Bharati chairman Nikhil Chakravartty continues to write his columns where he makes no bones about his antipathy to the BJP.

Out in the cold

Murli Manohar Joshi called Delhi’s political correspondents last week and lectured them on the World Trade Organisation and economic liberalisation while refusing to answer political questions. Since most of the correspondents were unfamiliar with economic issues, Joshi was free to rattle on without any fear of contradiction, but in the bargain he got little publicity for his pains.

Joshi is no longer part of the BJP triumvirate along with L.K. Advani and A.B. Vajpayee. Advani’s term as party president has been extended due to the elections. But it is clear that after Advani, Khushabhau Thakre will take over from Advani. A special room has been prepared at the party office on Ashoka Road for Thakre. A peeved Joshi indulges in such subversive activity as leaking the contents of Advani acolyte Govindacharya’s long-ago diary with its indiscreet observations.

Hungry for publicity

The real dispute between G.V.G. Krishnamurthy and M.S. Gill was over sharing the media spotlight. Gill felt that GVG, as Krishnamurthy is known, was getting more than his fair share of publicity though he was the Chief Election Commissioner. GVG hogged the headlines frequently because he had valid points to make: such as not allowing criminals to contest elections and taking action against the Congress party for unlawful receipt of foreign donations. For Gill, GVG’s comments on the Shiv Sena were the last straw, even though they were factually correct.

Gill has made it clear that in future he will be the press spokesman for the EC. There is little GVG can do since the third election commission J.M. Lyngdoh invariably sides with Gill. Lyngdoh has worked under Gill as a joint secretary and still considers him the boss.