The Oriya style of spin doctoring

On a Sunday when most party headquarters look deserted, the BJP8217;s media cell is teeming with young party cadres, many of them energized...

On a Sunday when most party headquarters look deserted, the BJP8217;s media cell is teeming with young party cadres, many of them energized by a recent 8216;day-long media workshop8217; that taught them how to handle the print and electronic media.

For a strategy, the media watchdogs have been advised to adopt a pro-active role. 8216;8216;We believe offence will be our best defence,8217;8217; says Sunil Panda and Om Mahanty, both key members of the media cell8217;s office in Bhubaneshwar headed by Sameer Mohanty. 8216;8216;By offence we mean an aggressive marketing of the image of our candidates and the policies of the party,8217;8217; says Panda.

When Sheshadri Chari and Nilesh Sharma addressed the 8216;Pravaris8217;, the strategy was explained in details. For instance, the importance of image and perception was explained with the example of Rajiv Gandhi who at one point of time was regarded as Mr Clean. But public perception of him underwent a drastic change following a sustained campaign about Bofors kickbacks and he was thrown out of power.

So, in each of the 84 assembly segments out of a total of 147 where the BJP will have a stake, a media 8216;Pravari8217; watchdog or coordinator has been appointed to take care of the candidate8217;s image. Each media cell will have a moderately decent infrastructure8212;a fax, computer and internet connection , a telephone and a solid information bank to nail the so called 8216;motivated or distorted news8217; published.

The BJP media watchdogs have a specified list of jobs every day8212;read as many newspapers as possible and then make paper cuttings of the relevant news, categorize them 8216;negative or positive8217; and then respond to it.

The objective will be to counter any news that has a 8216;negative8217; angle about either the party or the candidates. The outcome of such an elaborate exercise across the country was apparently displayed on a well mounted placard that read: 8216;Mission media management=success, 2004.8217;

Neither Sunil Panda nor Om Mahanty is willing to disclose the budget for each media cell. 8216;8216;We do have a budget but basically it will depend on the local establishment, if they will treat the Press with biryani or plain samosa,8217;8217; said Panda.