REPORTERS’ DIARY : Down but not out

A Tamil proverb goes ‘Kuppura vizhundhalum meesaiyil man ottavillai (transliteration); meaning, “I fell flat on my face, but there is no dust on my mustache”. Likewise, in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister and YSR Congress president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, while fighting the TDP-JSP-BJP alliance with his back to the wall, is making the most of his detractors’ missteps. Soon after the release of the alliance’s manifesto, which carried the photographs of only Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi conspicuously missing, Jagan reasoned that it was so because the manifesto contained promises that cannot be implemented and hence disowned by alliance partner BJP. The manifesto of the alliance actually contained promises relating to schemes presently under implementation by the Jagan government but gift-wrapped with assurances of vastly increased benefits. The missing Modi photo came in handy for Jagan to hit back at the alliance.