Lok Satta’s claim of offering ‘new politics for a new generation’ is possibly just another election rhetoric, if recent incidents are any indicators.
The social group-turned-political party making its debut this election, banking heavily on its ‘clean’ image has already shown signs of double-speak and even rot in its ranks, say observers.
Take for instance, Lok Satta founder Jayaprakash Narayan’s visit to Nellore last week. It was touted as Narayan’s ‘Gandhi-like’ endeavour, as he boarded a secondclass compartment in the train with a media contingent to capture him walking his talk.
But as it turned out, Narayan’s simplistic journey lasted as long as the cameras were trained on him as he promptly took a flight back to Hyderabad from Tirupati, where he went from Nellore.
The scribes, many of them women accompanying ‘the new leader of the masses’ were shockingly left to fend for themselves in the middle of the night and later packed off to Hyderabad for a 12 hour journey in a bus. This was within hours of their completing a gruelling 12 hours journey that began at 5-40 in the morning.
But what irked many was the rot in JP’s ranks with some like C Purnachandra Rao, who handles Narayan’s public relations, misbehaving with women. Women journalists who accompanied Narayan to Nellore, say they were both witness and victims of Rao’s obscene advances and had even raised objections to the same.
Curiously, it was only a few days ago when Narayan had lashed out at the media saying that he wasn’t being given enough coverage.
Critics question whether Narayan’s train yatra wasn’t, after all, a media gimmick to get some easy publicity. And there are more concerns. Political analysts are questioning how will people have faith in the party if it is seeking a donation even to pay the deposit of candidates.
“If you understand voters’ psyche, a party unable to cough up Rs 5,000 as the deposit money for its candidates may not be able to hold voters’ confidence,’’ according to an analyst.
3 comments:
This article reeks of political vendetta and clearly tries to target an honorable figure of the society for reasons unknown. You journos think you are society's moral police but fail to understand the basic code of conduct a scribe has to follow while reporting news. You want to sensationalize every bit of trivial information out there and malign everything that looks clean and honest. Is it really necessary to thrive on such negative sensationalism in order to be in business? Kindly show some maturity and restraint when reporting about honest and sincere public figures. Only with a joint effort from the politicians, the citizens and most importantly, the media can we bring about a real change in our country.
Jai Hind
It is sad to see a newspaper like you make vague, unsubstantiated allegations against a party like the Lok Satta. Reporting without proof and passing on unverified inneundo as fact is not warranted by a newspaper that is as highly respected as yours. If there were objections against the behaviour of Purnachander Rao, you need to quote verfiable sources.
Secondly, if JP's taking a flight trip back to Hyderabad is the only newsworthy fault that your reporters have found, then JP has my full-fledged support and admiration.
In a political situation steeped in money and muscle power, you need to try extremely hard to find someone who can stand up and fight. The media needs to realise that it needs to be a catalyst to this change rather than resort to mud slinging just because one of its reporters did not get a comfortable ride back home.
It is really so sad to see a such silly comments on great personalities like JP and Purnachandra Rao. This is really shame to Journalism. Some of the Journalists really don't have minds. My journalist friend: please use your mind and pen to support JP and Loksatta who are trying to give better life and better society.
Jai Hind, Jai Loksatta
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