REPORTERS’ DIARY : Politicians and punctuality

Among politicians, the rarely found virtue of punctuality seems to be related directly to whether they are in the ruling or the opposition camp. These days, Congress leaders, who used to be noticeably punctual in their previous avatar as opposition leaders, are no longer treating scribes’ time as sacrosanct. Of late, the pressers or media chit chats are delayed by not less than 30 minutes and sometimes the waiting time (ok, wasting on-duty time) goes up to 1.5 or even 2 hours. Curiously, even PROs of Congress leaders are taking reporters and their time for granted. Perceptive scribes recounted that during the previous BRS regime, the chief minister and the ministers used to do put scribes on the waiting list at the drop of a hat. KCR in particular had no qualms about making reporters wait for hours together. Today, the BRS biggies, now in the opposition camp, are cool dudes; their maximum delay is 15 minutes.