Mamata Banerjees grandstanding over the communications breakdown with the UPA moved the visual media to dizzying heights of oratory. Well before the politicians,journalists sniffed mid-term polls and went into high-strung election mode. NDTV reported that all Delhi-Kolkata lines are busy, and wondered if there is any room for back-room negotiations. Times Now trumped it with: the marriage is over. Clinical separation and wooing of other parties has begun. Why,are allies joined at the hip? And finally,heres a superb headline from Times Now: Mamata in two minds over three options. Has the fourth estate become a fifth column,determined to boggle the Indian mind beyond repair?
In the midst of the disinformation,misinformation and confusion which marked this week the strong words are Mamata Banerjees,someone adept in the very strategies she is denouncing one learned that the government has become an ornament. But on listening more carefully,one discovered that the government had only acquired a new appellation: gornament. We have lived with gubermint and suffered the indignities of gormint. Now,we must come to terms with gornament,a superb slip of the tongue institutionalised by Tasleem Ahmed Rehmani of the SP. He uttered it at least 10 times on NDTVs Left,Right and Centre. For instance: Why did (Mamata) not pull out the gornament right away? Why give gornament 72 hours? Its quite unusual for a man who is careful with his thoughts and words to be careless about his speech.
The first option was to reconsider and negotiate,the second was to extend support from the outside and the third this is outrageous,but it was for ministers to come to work as usual but do nothing at all. The methods of trade unionism in the corridors of power? But come to think of it,maybe this third option was just business as usual. Trinamool rail ministers have been punching the clock but doing no work as a matter of course. Their standard operating procedure is to sneak out of Rail Bhavan and goof off in Kolkata.
But then,even Newshour went politically correct all over. I mean,this is Arnab Goswami. One expects his studio to be swimming in blood and guts and outrage and despair. But the high point was BJP frontman Ravishankar Prasad being ticked off by Biocon boss Kiran Mazumdar Shaw for saying that FDI in retail was hurriedly adopted. Reminding him that the issue was mooted long ago by Yashwant Sinha,she said,The BJP should behave like a national party with national interests. A palpable hit that Prasad failed to fend off.
And then Gaurav Bhatia of the SP accused Times Now of systematically excluding representatives of farmers interests from its shows. Atul Kumar Anjan of the CPI kept objecting that he was a seasoned farmers rep,but no one paid any attention. Caught flat-footed by Bhatias charge,Arnab promised to be inclusive. I look forward to forthcoming issues of Newshour. It will be entertaining to see Krishi Darshan again,tarted up Times style.
pratik.kanjilal@expressindia.com
