Chidambaram-led GoM starts media management

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s latest effort to combat negative publicity rolled out in the public domain today when the newly constituted group of ministers (GoM) on media addressed its first press conference at Shastri Bhavan in the national capital. Home Minister P Chidambaram, along with two senior ministers Salman Khurshid and Ambika Soni, appeared in front of the media to answer queries ranging from Mayawati to Manipur.

But expectedly, the first question Chidambaram — head of the committee — faced was why the home minister of the country had to do the job of media management? Chidambaram skirted the issue asking the media to focus on more substantive issue. But he also didn’t forget to quip, “If there is time left in this press conference, then you may ask this question to Ambika Soni (the information and broadcasting minister)!”

Top Congress sources suggest the government took this hurried decision to form a GoM on media to interact with the press on a regular basis, under pressure. After watching how Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi publicly slammed the UPA and the prime minister over his unreleased report on the 2G spectrum probe, the government decided to act.

“We realised that we need to put out our points of views and the government’s arguments in a more effective way against these series of criticism. The Prime Minister almost immediately agreed on this issue and the GoM was finalised in a week’s time,” said a top minister in the UPA. But today’s press conference also couldn’t conceal the undercurrent between Soni and Chidambaram. When the second UPA came to power in May 2009, the two ministers had been involved in a cold war over who would lead the briefing to the press on Cabinet meetings.

Today, Soni could barely get a chance to speak as Chidambaram was in charge. She, in fact, got a chance to speak only twice and that too on the politically-sensitive subject of Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s arrest in Uttar Pradesh for supporting a farmers’ agitation there. When questions were asked in Hindi, Chidambaram preferred Khurshid over Soni to answer them.

Soni, however, refused any such rift and said, “It is a collective effort of our government.” She also rubbished suggestions that the GoM was formed under Opposition pressure and said, “The media wanted more interactions and when we told the Prime Minister about this, he immediately decided to form a GoM.”