Ruling Uf Has No Funds For Publicity
At a time when most political parties are splurging on media campaigns and publicity the BJPs media budget is estimated to be about Rs 12 crore the United Front is claiming to be starved of funds.
Senior UF leaders on Sunday met chief election commissioner M S Gill and Doordarshan and AIR chief executive S S Gill to inform them that the free airtime being given to political parties to put across their viewpoints to the populace might be of little use owing to fund scarcity. They were reacting to the Prasar Bharati Boards directive on Saturday to political parties asking them to produce campaign recordings at their own cost.
UF leaders say such a directive will not only lead to escalation of costs in recording, but will also make it difficult to record programmes in far-flung areas such as the north-east and other backward states. While most UF constituents met the CEC, only the Left leaders A B Bardhan, Prakash Karat, D Raja and Shamim Faizee met S S Gill.
Left leaders contended that the various UF constituents lacked enough funds to hire studios and other paraphernalia for publicity to make use of the allotted free airtime. The Saturday directive said responsibilities of transcripts of political parties after approval by the board should be recorded at their cost in private studios with the symbol of the party in the background. Prior to this circular, parties were allowed to use DD and AIR resources for recording their approved scripts.
S S Gill is understood to assured the Left leaders that he would consider their case. However, he clarified to Business Standard: If at all there has to be some change, then it has to be for everybody and not just for those who bemoan a lack of funds....though, they (the Left leaders) have a point when they say that to record a 10 minute message, a studio has to be hired for the whole shift (8 hours). Well look into the matter.
Prasar Bharati sources revealed that the Congress or the BJP have not come to it with the same problem.
UF leaders also said there had been a reduction in time allotted to all political parties on DD and AIR from the previous elections, although there has been increase in time allotted at the national level.
One of the anomalies is that while the Forward Bloc and RSP will get 55 minutes each on DD and AIR in West Bengal regional centre, the CPI(M) will get only around 10 minutes, a senior Left leader pointed out.
He added that like 45 minutes of base time given to all national parties on DD and AIR to put across their views, at least 10 minutes should be given to these parties from all regional centres as well.
The broadcast of political parties begins from February 7 and will continue till February 24 on DD and AIR. The Congress has been allotted 240 minutes of free airtime, BJP 190 minutes, CPI(M) 110 minutes and the CPI 55 minutes. No individual speaker from any party will be allowed more than 20 minutes to express his or her views.