But who encouraged the culture of cooking up speculative stories in Bihar?
Patna,(BiharTimes): Though chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday put all the blames on the media for running speculative stories that the JD(U) would join the Union council of ministers the truth is that his own party, Janata Dal (United) and Bharatiya Janata Party are past masters in planting stories to achieve their own political goal.
If media was doing all the speculative stories for so many days why did not anyone from JD(U) deny it at the very outset. Instead party leaders were camping in Delhi and gleefully stating that since the JD(U) has once again become a constituent of the NDA, there is every likelihood that two ministers would be inducted in the Narendra Modi cabinet.
It was only a few hours before the cabinet reshuffle that Nitish Kumar told a section of media that his party has not received any invitation to join the ministry.
It is wrong to held the mediapersons of Bihar responsible for it. As early as Augusut 27, that is six days before the reshuffle, a prominent English newspaper columnist wrote in her Sunday piece describing how and why the names of R C P Singh and Santosh Kushwaha were selected. She even went on to state that JD(U) is eying on the Railway portfolio for RCP as it wanted to dig out any scam which had taken place during the stay of Lalu Prasad in Railway Ministry between 2004 and 2009.
This was not any speculative story, but a deliberate leak of information by sources within the JD(U).
Objective journalists, who have covered JD(U) and BJP beats, know very well how these two parties in particular, plant stories to achieve their ends and settle political score.
Who is not aware of the fact that Nitish Kumar would release Report Card on every anniversary and give advertisements worth millions of rupees to highlight the ‘achievements’ of BJP-JD(U) government. The truth is that some of the so-called achievements were purely of the then Manmohan Singh government but he would showcase them as his own. The obedient media would never question him.
Any journalist who would dare to toe an independent line would be virtually cut to size.
Whether Nitish Kumar wanted RCP to become a minister or not is his business the truth is that for the last so many years he was the darling of the media and not anyone else. He is the one chief minister who had received maximum number of awards from mediahouses, when the fact is that Press is considered as the watchdog of the society. Mediahouses are not expected to distribute trophies to rulers.
