Author: Virendra Kapoor
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: September 1, 2002
The Union Minister for Tourism and
Culture, Jagmohan, has a bone to pick with, the media. He thinks the media
is superficial and, worse, hypocritical, refusing to see. Its own failings.
The minister's ire was aroused by a report the other day in the capital's
leading daily which suggested that he had allotted plots of land to certain
organisations in order to curry favour with the RSS. Jagmohan denies it
and blames a journalist working for the said paper for planting' the said
report. Curiously, when he held a press conference to make the same charge
against the journalist concerned, the media blacked it out, in the mistaken
belief that journalists are accountable to none. So here is what Jagmohan
had to say about the journalist in question and why he targets the minister
who deservedly enjoys a clean reputation.
According to Jagmohan, when he was
the Minister for Urban Development he came to know that the said journalist
had been in illegal occupation of a government house for close to a decade.
The house in question was allotted to the journalist's father upon whose
death it was allotted to his mother since both were government employees.
But when both his parents died, instead of vacating the house, he continued
to occupy it. Despite several eviction notices, he refused to move out.
However following the Supreme Court order for the eviction of journalists
from government houses, the said journalist's case again came to the Ministry's
notice.
And it turned out that the fellow
had not even paid the usual market rent - which is about 40 per cent less
than the open market rate - for close to a decade. His cumulative rental
arrears now totaled nearly Rs Nine lakhs. When the ministry demanded the
payment, the journalist sought remission of arrears, and what is more,
wanted the house allotment to be regularised in his own name. At his request,
senior Delhi BJP leaders pleaded his case with Jagmohan, but to no avail.
Jagmohan noted on the file that he could not neither allot the house to
him nor write off the arrears as it would become a costly precedent. Since
then, the Minister insists, the said journalist has been misusing his position
in the paper to attack him with malicious intent. The Minister's complaint
against the journalist with the Press Council was pending, but such is
the 'conspiracy of silence' within the media that no one was interested
in taking note of his seemingly valid grievance!
