I don't know who has told the Chief Ministers to issue full-page advertisements in major dailies about their achievements with their smiling photos to match. The conviction in the minds of these leaders and someone who is fattening his purse by fooling/ conniving with the CM is that by issuing such advertisements, the people [read voters]of his state will start realising how a great work the CM is doing for them.
Take the case of 'behenji' Mayawati of UP. Every now and then, full page advertisements appear in papers listing the numerous Ambedkar / Manyavar Kanshiram / Mayavati instutions or monuments or scholarships have been established and so on. I read the list sometimes, but I feel there are definintely some more who read these ads, including the babu who has compiled the list, top officials of the departments concerned [to check how good their list looks as compared to that of other departments because a small list might cost them their high positions] and a few sycophants who have access to the CM because they can use the list to humour behenji.
Uttarakhand CM, a self proclaimed poet and scholar of internatinal eminence, too is fond of his photo and the list of his achievements. Pokhriyal knows how the media works and looks for photo opportunities and makes good use of them, but the list of achievements! In fact, I was provoked to write this post when I was told by some Uttarakhandis how irritated they feel when they see the ad.
Luckily, not many CMs are indulging in this type of useless self promotion. Nitish does it once in a while and so does Budhadeb [pardonable, since elections are around the corner in both the states and the opposition is making their life difficult]. In south, Kalaignar is reported to be doing so, but I do not know Tamil and at least he does not use Hindu for this purpose. I am promted to know about him, but right now I am postponing that for some later post.
No comments:
Post a Comment