Prime irritants

Travelling with the Prime Minister is usually a much coveted experience for any reporter. Tracking events is easier as a litany of securi...

Travelling with the Prime Minister is usually a much coveted experience for any reporter. Tracking events is easier as a litany of security checks are waived at the very sight of the badge 8220;Prime Minister8217;s Press Party8221; dangling around one8217;s neck. Moreover, reports filed during the entire tour are normally given eye-catching display as they concern the most important political person in the country.

At least, this is the impression one harbours until one actually becomes part of the 8220;Prime Minister8217;s Press Party8221;. Indeed, many of this reporter8217;s long-held notions were shattered on a seven-day trip with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to the Andaman and Nicobar islands and Bangalore.

If there is one thing journalists detest, it is punctuality, something strictly adhered to in VIP itineraries. So as we disembarked at Bhubaneshwar for a night halt, we were handed over a paper, giving the PM8217;s minute-by-minute schedule. The same thing happened when we landed at Car Nicobar for a three-day visit to theislands or for a four-day stay at Bangalore.

Besides, while working late hours is a common habit with journalists, early morning schedules can take some getting used to. Take the incident at Port Blair where the Prime Minister on December 31 attended a dinner hosted by the Fortress Commander of Andamans, Harinder Singh, the Vice Admiral whose complaint against Vishnu Bhagwat was believed to have been part of the reason for his sacking only a day earlier.

Though the PM was back at the Raj Bhawan by 9.30 pm, reporters were busy till 10.30 pm grappling with faulty telephone lines to send their despatches to their respective offices. Any thoughts of a late morning were put to rest by an invitation for breakfast at 7 am from the man in the thick of things, Harinder Singh himself 8212; expressing regrets was out of the question, for the meal could have been accompanied by a scoop. A late night on new year8217;s eve notwithstanding, reporters rushed to work early the next day.

Besides the tough schedule, immediatelyon alighting from the PM8217;s aircraft one is given details about accommodation and transport. So here we were, three reporters in car number 10 in the PM8217;s cavalcade 8212; the order is sacrosanct, your car has to move with the PM8217;s car, it doesn8217;t matter to the driver or even the officials if you are caught in a crowd and can8217;t board the car. The same holds true for the PM8217;s aircraft as well. 8220;We left one person behind who couldn8217;t make it in time for the PM8217;s flight from Jaipur. He came by a commercial flight later,8221; warned a senior PMO official. So the first thing on our list of priorities was to make it to our car and, of course, the aircraft as well, before the PM set out for a public function.

Then, there is always the danger of missed deadlines, thanks to a rigid bureaucracy and an inflexible security team. Thankfully, we were a little lucky and escaped the nightmare by a whisker in Bangalore, where we landed at 6 pm and were confined first to the airport till 8 pm and then to the Raj Bhavan for anotherhalf an hour 8212; all because of lack of transport. Sounds incredible? Sure, there were cars to take us but they would move only when the Prime Minister8217;s car started and would go only where the VVIP went.

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In fact, reporters accompanying the PM could not file their reports from Port Blair as there are only two STD lines out of the islands 8212; and hooking up one8217;s fax or modem is next to impossible. Thus the first thing reporters hankered for in Bangalore was an STD line with fax facilities to transmit their reports. That was possible only after 9 pm that day. But then, maybe one should not complain. As the saying goes, you have to sacrifice something to achieve something.