Judeo-gate146;s missing hero

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Perhaps, then, an immediate reaction from the most reactive members of the BJP 8212; Pramod Mahajan or Arun Jaitley? Curiously, Mr Mahajan, who prominently displayed Tulsi ji to the world on Saturday, is conspicuously absent and what8217;s more, stunningly silent. Mr Jaitley, perhaps too busy with Uma Bharti in Bhopal touching up the BJP Madhya Pradesh manifesto, issues an innocuous statement about Congress machinations.

Well, then, they must have got a resounding sound bite from M. Venkaiah Naidu 8212; right? The party president isn8217;t at all camera shy given a chance to display his moustache. But no, no Naidu, either. When the top BJP leadership is collectively missing from TV, is spells only one word: trouble.

General Secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is left to describe the tape as 8216;8216;fabricated and manipulated8217;8217;. Do the TV channels call in their technical people, seated behind the anchors, to explain how such a VCD can be 8216;8216;fabricated8217;8217;? Nope. Predictably, they rush off to get an official Congress reaction. Thereafter, we watch endless clips of Judeo on the campaign trail, seated comfortably in his designer truck replete with TV, VCD and other luxuries, until The Indian Express passes them the VCD.

The media has a strange attitude to its own tribe. When one 8216;8216;breaks news8217;8217; the others pretend they don8217;t know its name. Sunday morning Aaj Tak began by calling The Indian Express 8216;8216;one Delhi newspaper8217;8217;, Star News was even less forthcoming with 8216;8216;one newspaper8217;8217;, while NDTV India described it as 8216;8216;an English newspaper8217;8217;, NDTV 24X7, Sahara Samay and surprise, surprise, DD News named The Indian Express from the morning. Indeed, DD News gave The Indian Express prominence by framing the newspaper8217;s frontpage. There ought to be a convention that the media name the source of the story, so the viewer/reader can form his or her own judgement.

Also, is there any point in withholding the name of the publication when, for the rest of the day, the very same channels would run the VCD, interview Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta and be forced to identify both? All a little silly.

Some channels withheld the name of The Indian Express, at least they did not suppress the story. Watching Zee News Headline News at 1.30 pm, sponsored by Luminous Geysers, P.P. Jewellers, Action Flotters etc., you8217;d not have known about Judeo at all. It led with Advani on the Telgi scam, went up to Kashmir, east across to Assam and then swung back west to Jaipur for the arrest of a Dawood Ibrahim associate. Huh?

When you saw the tape, you realised why the BJP was missing in action: Judeo sits nonchalantly drinking and then raises the bundles to his forehead in a gesture of appreciation or gratefulness. And when he, finally, surfaces at a 6 p.m. Raipur press conference, you know he8217;s seen the tape too: his mooch droops, his grim eyes belie his hunter-wallah words: 8216;8216;this is a complete fabrication 8212; this is the work of the Congress, missionaries, this is a conspiracy8217;8217;, etc.

At the end of a hectic day in front of the TV, two men are seen smiling. First, the Congress chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi, accused of 8216;8216;fabricating8217;8217; the 8216;8216;evidence8217;8217;. From his smile he didn8217;t look like the cow who had produced the milk but the cat who had eaten the cream. Cut to the prime minister back from his latest foreign tour. Evidently, these suit him because whenever you see him after a trip, his cheeks look rosier than when he left. Asked about Judeo, Vajpayee burst into a series of giggles and smiled grandly before he announced that Judeo would have to go if he was found guilty.

8226; Excerpts from the transcript of the VCD