Sunday, June 20, 2004

bjp's modi operandus

Today's Press Trust of India blurb quoting BJP president Venkaiah Naidu as saying the party has no proposal to remove Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi "at this juncture" is a good example of how the press has been left guessing about the stance of various BJP leaders on the 2002 riots (Atal Behari Vajpayee in particular).

More importantly, however, the structure of the blurb reveals the too-credulous attitude of the press that I lamented in an earlier post. After quoting Naidu, the report goes on to state with artificial reserve that the BJP president ended the press conference when journalists pressed him about whether the "issues raised by" Vajpayee were discussed. "Raised by?" Did Vajpayee really raise new issues when he claimed that he'd considered calling for Modi to step down? How hard had he tried to make himself heard on these issues before?

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