Judeo-gate’s missing hero

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Perhaps, then, an immediate reaction from the most reactive members of the BJP — Pramod Mahajan or Arun Jaitley? Curiously, Mr Mahajan, who prominently displayed Tulsi ji to the world on Saturday, is conspicuously absent (and what’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 — right? The party president isn’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 ‘‘fabricated and manipulated’’. Do the TV channels call in their technical people, seated behind the anchors, to explain how such a VCD can be ‘‘fabricated’’? 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 ‘‘breaks news’’ the others pretend they don’t know its name. Sunday morning Aaj Tak began by calling The Indian Express ‘‘one Delhi newspaper’’, Star News was even less forthcoming with ‘‘one newspaper’’, while NDTV India described it as ‘‘an English newspaper’’, 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 newspaper’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., you’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 he’s seen the tape too: his mooch droops, his grim eyes belie his hunter-wallah words: ‘‘this is a complete fabrication — this is the work of the Congress, missionaries, this is a conspiracy’’, 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 ‘‘fabricating’’ the ‘‘evidence’’. From his smile he didn’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.

• Excerpts from the transcript of the VCD