Tewari vs Maken: How Congress lost the media war to the BJP

New Delhi: Here’s one more example how the Congress is out of step with the times; and here’s one more question the party would shy away from asking itself. Why do the spokespersons for the BJP appear so well-groomed and well-prepared on television channels while those of the Congress look so casual and out of tune? It’s obvious that the BJP ensures that its spokespersons – the party’s face in the media – are always ready for the occasion, with homework on issues in question done in-depth and quick answers along the party line to a ranger of posers. The party is serious about the impression it makes in the media, by extension the public, while the Congress is not.

Why? It’s clueless about a media strategy. The latest tussle within the Congress over who should speak for the party makes it clear.

Over the last few months leader after leader has gone all the way to show that discipline seems least of their worries in the current scheme of things. So the leadership sought to assert itself by limiting the number of official spokespersons to just 18 this Monday. But the move seems to have backfired within hours, senior leaders Manish Tewari and Rashid Alvi made it clear that they didn’t need the tag of a ‘spokesperson’ to air their views as Congress workers.

In the end, the ‘gag order’ issued by the Congress’ media chief Ajay Maken seems to have further eroded his authority within the organization. The frustration of former Information and Broadcasting Minister Tewari was there for all to see. He responded on Twitter: “There are certain core convictions I believe in. When they are assaulted, I do not require a noun or an adjective behind my name to intervene in the public discourse.”

But it is hard to imagine that things could change so much for the worse in the past one year. When Maken was appointed as the head of Media Department in June last year, it was being hailed as a positive step where the young guns were being given their due in the organisation. This was particularly important as the general elections were due in a year’s time from then. Since then, the party has been tripping itself over many times, starting with the ordinance on tainted politicians in September 2013. Ajay Maken was at pains to defend the ordinance that protected tainted politicians at the Press club of India till Rahul Gandhi decided to gate crash and tear away the Ordinance.

“What Rahul ji has just said is important. Rather than what has happened in the past two days, we should go by what Rahul ji is saying” was all he could muster at the ‘U’ turn done by the Gandhi scion that left the party and government in a state of shock.

Adding to their misery was the addition of new faces (Sanjay Jha, Rajeev Gowda, Salman Soz etc) as spokespersons with little or no political experience in the run up to the general elections. In contrast, the BJP ran well oiled machinery handled by veterans like Arun Jaitley and Ravishankar Prasad. There was regular interaction between these senior leaders and the likes of Rajeev Pratap Rudy, Prakash Javdekar, Shahnawaz Hussain and Nirmala Sitharaman on a daily basis. The then campaign chief of the BJP, Narendra Modi even held workshops with their spokespersons across the country last year. Such is the calibre of their spokespersons that the likes of Sudhanshu Trivedi and Nalin Kohli are used mostly for TV debates. The lack of credible faces also had a negative impact on the Congress party’s fortunes as they were seen floundering to defend UPA on policies and decisions.

“We did not convey the right impression to the people at large during our election campaign,” Sandeep Dikshit had conceded after their 2014 loss. “There were a lot of good things that UPA had done, but we somehow failed to connect,” he maintained.

Ever since senior Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi relinquished charge of the party’s media department, the sting in the tail seems to have gone from the grand old party. Earlier, the party had Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Abhishek Singhvi, Manish Tewari among others who held regular briefings with Dwivedi on issues to be taken up before media. Be it the issue of former Justice P Sathasivam being appointed Governor of Kerala to HRD Minister Smriti Irani’s educational qualifications, the party is finding it difficult to speak in one voice. While some sought to give it a legal twist, the party would have fared better if they chose to attack on moral grounds.

“We remain confused about our future plans, there is no direction coming from the top,” confided a senior leader. “Maken is not to be blamed because he may have been given responsibility but has not been taken seriously. That is why you hear everyone giving their opinion without consulting seniors” he added. The lack of cohesive strategy is just another reflection of the malaise within the Congress party.