Is Kiran a victim of lacklustre publicity?

Is the ruling Congress an unwitting victim of its own apathy towards the State Information Department or is it simply a case of the Department’s key officers not being up to the mark?

Despite the Congress government under former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy launching many pro-poor programmes, and carrying forward existing schemes like Jalayagnam, Fee Reimbursement, Arogyasri, IKP, SHG and a Legislation to control MFIs among others, the state has not shone brightly on the National horizon.

Contrasted to this, the TDP regime on the other hand shone brightly in spite of adopting a ‘no stress’ policy on pro-poor steps.

What is the reason behind this?

Almost seven years after he was voted out of power in the state, Telugu Desam Party president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is still remembered as a dynamic and active leader by NRIs and politicians outside of Andhra Pradesh.

The secret behind his prevailing popularity is perhaps the fact that he had emphasized on publicity which worked wonders during the TDP’s 9-year rule in the state.

The same publicity, or lack of it, has surely failed to arouse the interest of the world over the work carried out by YSR and continued by his successors. 

People still remember the ‘Janmabhoomi’ programme but most barely recall what the programme was all about.

Compared to the Janmabhoomi, its counterpart ‘Rachcha Banda’ attracted the attention of the poor villagers who flocked at the Chief Minister’s meetings in districts in good numbers to secure the release of loans, ration cards, pattas or ventilate grievances. Amazingly, the Janmabhoomi programme did not draw as many people to rush to the then Chief Minister as the Rachcha Banda did. However, unlike Rachcha Banda, Janmabhoomi attracted nation-wide attention and gained immense coverage mainly because of Mr Naidu’s publicity strategy.

The then Chief Minster Chandrababu Naidu hit the international headlines. There was so much excitement in his rule.

This was perhaps because of the fact that private companies were employed to design his publicity drive. Earth and heaven were moved to show the TDP government in bright light.

Perhaps no other government in the country had spent As much money that was spent during Mr Naidu’s tenure on publicity.

Contrasted to the sum the TDP chose to spend towards publicity, the Congress launched many welfare programmes which became quite popular on their own, based purely on public acceptance.

However, If only proper coverage was affected, things may have been different for the Congress on the National and international stage.

Of all, the fee reimbursement was topper with the underprivileged class students pursuing higher studies. Arogyasri too with a vans picking up the patients offered super-speciality service to the poor.

Whereas the successive Congress governments under YSR, Rosaiah and Kiran Kumar Reddy did their part well yet their ‘coverage’ was insufficient which has been attributed to the ‘non-cooperation’ of the information department or ‘negligence’ of the successive chief ministers who did not employ the technique which Mr Naidu made use of.

On the other hand, YSR went down in the history for ‘gagging’ the press for having issued a controversial ‘GO’ which was withdrawn overnight.

The stress that was laid on publicity by Mr Naidu had been missing since YSR takeover who had been accused of having had developed an aversion for the media.

That apart, the accusing finger points out at Information Commissioner and another key officer who lacked the requisite drive.

Even the budget allotment today is not as much as it should be.

That was precisely the reason behind the ‘inactive’ role of key officers in the Information Department as earlier during TDP time the same Information Wing had at its disposal budget in hundreds of crores.

Just the organising of the Rachcha Banda programme alone claimed an expenditure of Rs 300 crore but in terms of publicity the scheme did not receive suitable coverage in respect of its ‘reach out’ in the remote corners.

Another flag ship programme - Jalayagnam - which claimed Rs 50,000 crore so far did not receive as much attention as it should have gained. Here too the department failed.

Strangely the same Information Wing which served Mr Naidu became quite ‘dull’ for the reason that their hands were tied up with no funds at their disposal.

To quote, a small newspaper claimed Rs 40 lakh towards its advertisement for government Ads under the then Information and Public Relations chief Ramana Chary.

The issue was opposed by the then leading newspapesr for promoting the interests of a small paper by sanctioning such a huge sum. That was Mr Naidu’s style of disposal for publicity.

At a time when the opposition was jointly speaking against the welfare schemes etc, the department was doing nothing to counter their charges which proved detrimental to the interests of the government who left no stone unturned to implement poor schemes since day one in office.

In the absence of a suitable ‘counter’ to what the opposition claimed, the public was bound to believe the version as projected by the opposition.  Opposition to the appointment of N Kiran Kumar Reddy as the Chief Minister continues today, with he being accused of not continuing the welfare schemes launched by the late YSR.

As a young Chief Minister, he also put in his mettle to prove his worth. Still he lags behind mainly because of inappropriate exposure to his execution of government sponsored programmes during 100 days recently.