Stalking controversy

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Rahul Gandhi's controversial statements during the UP poll trail have invited controversy recurrently. If it was the Babri demolition earlier, this week saw him hold forth on the Indo-Pak war of 1971. The liberation of Bangladesh, Rahul thundered at a rally in Bareilly, could come about only because a Gandhi was heading the country. The hubris of his statement provided grist for the reporter and the regional press latched on to it in the following days.

Rajasthan Patrika took the story on the front page in its April 16 edition. Building on Rahul's statement that the Gandhi clan sees to completion what it sets out to do, the paper reported Pakistan's reservations. In an edit, the paper questioned Rahul's sincerity: "Doubtless, the mix of Indian and foreign blood has resulted in a curious intermingling of both cultures in Rahul Gandhi. Reason perhaps why he does not know that resuscitating old wounds is against Indian ethos."

Dainik Bhaskar took it as the lead story in its Monday edition, with a table that listed leaders of the Opposition attacking Rahul's statement. This included the BJP's V K Malhotra, SP's Amar Singh and CPI's D Raja. The Congress party's damage control was included in the same report in the form of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's plea in Afzalgarh to give the "young" Rahul a try.

Dainik Jagran focused on L K Advani's comment that Rahul's statement reeked of the typical Congress mindset that equated the Gandhi family with India. Advani, addressing a rally in Gorakhpur, recounted the infamous '70s slogan, "Indira is India and India, Indira" to draw attention to the dangers he believed lay in store for the country if a Gandhi returned to power.

Apart from this, the week clearly belonged to the massacre at Virginia Tech. Nearly all Hindi papers gave the news prominent coverage, with special focus on the deaths of Professor G V Loganathan and architecture student Minal Panchal, the two Indians to die in the shooting.

Rahul Gandhi's statement on the role of his family in the break-up of Pakistan did not generate much interest among Kannada newspapers and the news was relegated to their inside pages. It is the UP elections which continued to receive front page coverage.

Market leader Vijaya Karnataka, in its editorial, said: "It was generally believed that capturing power in UP is equivalent to capturing power at the Centre. But that is not applicable any more with so many regional parties, such as BSP and SP, in the fray. The Congress, instead of proposing development plans in its election mandate, is portraying Rahul Gandhi as the future prime minister. It only shows that the Congress has run out of ideas."

The regional news that received widespread coverage was the high court stay on elections to local bodies in Karnataka. The high court issued the order after it found fault with the reservation system. All the leading newspapers like Praja Vani and Kannada Prabha extensively debated how this development would affect the various political parties.

Many parts of north Karnataka continue to reel under drought and most Kannada newspapers are running news-series on the subject.