Its
located in Pramod Mahajan's 7, Safdarjung Road (New Delhi) home. Lunch,
a different cuisine everyday, is cooked in Mahajan's kitchen. And even
as a bunch of professionals from different fields sit before
state-of-the-art computers to churn out data on elections and do content
analysis of newspapers, television sets broadcast news and current
affairs shows round the clock.
Welcome
to the new world of BJP media manipulation. Every day, Rammohan Rao,
Principal Information Officer to the Government between June 1985 and
January 1992, takes a meeting where the day's newspapers are dissected.
Editorials are examined and biases in news reports are noted. Responses
are worked out accordingly - which is when newspaper editors and TV
network presidents get calls.
The
show then moves on to television news. Doordarshan, Zee TV and Star News
are put under scrutiny. The priority their bulletins give to Government
news, how much time they devote to the Opposition, and how often they
focus on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee are all duly noted.
A
report is prepared, salient points of which are communicated to
Mahajan's unofficial aide Sudhanshu Mittal, former president of the
Delhi University Students' Union and long-time member of the Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
Mittal's
father runs what is probably one of the largest suppliers of shamianas
in the Capital, the Delhi Tent House. This graduate of the Sri Ram
College of Commerce, and his friend and Indian Institute of Technology
graduate, Ajay Singh - who was made a consultant in the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting with the rank of joint secretary in April
this year (though he draws only a salary of Re 1) -then brief Mahajan.
Mahajan
then communicates the responses to BJP party spokespersons such as Arun
Jetley. Ajay Singh, meanwhile, meets Prasar Bharati CEO Rajeev Ratna
Shah, to tell him what line the ostensibly autonomous DD should follow
that day. The morning meetings of the BJP's official media cell, at
former I&B Minister Sushma Swaraj's home, carry little weight.
These
day-long group brain-storming sessions which usually last till 3.30 in
the afternoons are the meeting point for several regulars: apart from
Rao, there is newspaper executive R.P. Singh, who was part of Task Force
BJP last year which developed the election campaign. Then there is
Aarnir Raza Husain, who engineered the Satyamev Jayate performance at
the Hauz Khas monument earlier this year. Ajay Singh drops in. As does
Sanjay Nigam, formerly with TVI and now a consultant to the DD news
channel. And though Mittal and Mahajan put in brief appearances, it is
clear they are the bosses.
(Source:
Indian Express, August 6, 1999)