With the term of the 14th Lok Sabha having expired on February 26, the decks are being cleared in right earnest for the next general election this summer, with poll dates due to be announced any day now. Fortunately and unexpectedly, the last day of the final session of the Lok Sabha ended peacefully without any acrimonious hullabaloo in Parliament, for which this collapsing democracy has become infamous.
But while for the majority of members of this Parliament, which disgraced itself for the least number of sittings and hours of debate in post-independence India, the pay and perks laden party is over, for the Indian media — which is experiencing hard times because of the global economic slowdown — election time is party (pun intended) time. With typical recklessness about spending public money for personal aggrandisement, ministers of the outgoing Congress-led 17-party UPA government in New Delhi have commenced an ad spending spree which has delighted the country’s media barons.
Without wasting any time, several ministries of the outgoing UPA government are flooding television channels and newspapers with long ad bytes and full-page advertisements, trumpeting their self-proclaimed contributions to the common good and welfare of the citizenry. For instance on February 26, several Union ministries including family health and welfare, shipping, road transport and highways, civil aviation, new and renewable energy, and coal, trumpeted their great and hitherto unknown and unfelt achievements on full-page ads in 19 editions of the Times of India, reportedly the most profitable daily newspaper worldwide.
ToI’s reported bill for the February 26 advertising blitzkrieg which signals the onset of the election silly season: an estimated Rs.95 lakh, paid out of each ministry’s budget allocation. To what purpose? the hapless taxpayer might bleat. The Congress high command reportedly believes this is the route to winning sympathetic coverage and support of India’s largest and most powerful media house. Given that the lucre obsessed ToI management admittedly and officially sells editorial coverage, that might be smart thinking.