Some light over Amit Shah, CBI and media stories

Lots of readers are writing to us, whether they should take the news published on NDTV website “CBI closes in on Gujarat minister”, “Speculations about Amit Shah’s resignation as he doesn’t attend the cabinet meeting” in Divya Bhaskar, and “Sohrabuddin case finds Gujarat minister on tenterhooks” in Hindustan Times seriously.

My take is that, two Delhi based media houses are well known for their pro-Congress stand. You watched how last year in Lok Sabha election season, both media houses openly favored Congress. You also watched their coverage on Bharat Bandh call. When whole India shut down against the ruling UPA-Congress government, the TV channel was showing how bandhs are not good. Needless to say that Delhi based newspaper’s chief lady is Congress MP in Rajya Sabha.

Another one ..halka.com website is wellknown for its stand on Maoism, Godhra, Modi and Gujarat. This ..halka.com recently published an article on how Modi avoids Amit Shah in public these days. The article was published online on 9th of July. DeshGujarat published a photo of a function held in Dholka near Ahmedabad on same day showing Amit Shah and Narendra Modi sharing common stage and distributing aid to poor people jointly. Delhi based Congress supported Rajya Sabha MP’s newspaper in its recent story published that due to CBI threat, Gujarat minister Amit Shah lost 10 kg weight. I wonder, whether that correspondent went to Amit Shah with weighing scale? He – the correspondent on the contrary writes in same article that the minister could not be contacted and traced! Media’s over excitement for a story before it happens creates doubts about its intention and credibility.

When Amit Shah told media that he was absent in 1st May Swarnim Gujarat function due to his mother’s ill health, the media didn’t take him seriously. Later on, after some days, his mother passed away. Section of media exposed? Those who were beating drums that Modi was distancing from Shah didn’t publish Modi’s photo in his mother’s condolence meeting. BJP’s top leaders Advani and Arun Jaitley flew from Delhi specially to condole Amit Shah on his mother’s demise. So where was that ‘distancing’ depicted in media largely?

Yesterday, a tabloid daily from Ahmedabad published an article ‘Modi and Shah: Poles apart?” This article says: “Shah was the first of the political leaders to arrive at the (Jagannath)temple at 4.15 am. He performed the mangala aarti but left the temple soon. At 6.30 am, he again came to the temple, minutes before the arrival of chief minister at 6.45 am. But, Shah’s absence was conspicuous.The CM and home minister avoided each other at the temple apparently because CBI is likely to quiz the latter in the Sohrabuddin case..”

Now those media persons covering Ahmedabad’s Rath Yatra for last 1o years or so, know very well that it is routine that every year Amit Shah visits Rath Yatra early in the morning at around 4.00 am to participate in Mangala aarti(shah is Vaishnav by the way) and he goes back to his house by sunrise. Then he again comes back before seven with his family, but he does not go to Rath with the CM for Pahind ceremony. Last year there was no CBI threat, but Shah was not seen with the CM during Pahind in public. Take a year before and it was same. But this year, for apparent motive, his absence in presence of the CM makes news in section of overexcited media!

Just today morning, a friend reporter from India’s most trustworthy(there is at least few trustworthy entities left in media field) news agency sitting next in a function was frequency receiving calls and SMSes from other journalists asking whether there was any truth in rumors abuzz about Amit Shah’s possible anticipatory bail application and CBI call? My friend journalist told how such rumors are created almost on daily bases for last many days by a group and how it is becoming headache. He said every time when he tries to verify, such rumors prove baseless.

So Amit Shah not attending state cabinet meeting becomes news in such circumstances. If any other minister is absent its Okay with the media. If Amit Shah attended cabinet meet last week, it’s not news. If he didn’t attend meeting before that sometime in past, it’s not news. Of course no comment from state govt spokesperson and Amit Shah himself entertain overexcited media persons. This could be perceived as rubbishing tactic or interesting strategy from govt side. The fact, thankfully published in only one newspaper Gujarat Samachar tells the real story that Amit Shah was in Delhi for governmental work on Wednesday and therefore not present in cabinet meeting.Gujarat Samachar showed maturity and published this in single column somewhere on unnoticed bottom corner of second page with remark that Shah related rumors were actually rumors and just rumors.

Sometime back a Gujarati newspaper’s enthusiastic “live” website published that Amit Shah was summoned by CBI. But then the news didn’t publish next day in print version of same newspaper. Then one English daily from Ahmedabad published front page story that Shah was to be summoned but due to his mother’s death, the CBI postponed the summon. This whole story was based on “sources”, God knows what sources, Congress sources, or NGO sources or what. The postponed summon has never materialized since then. One news correspondent of media house outside Gujarat had prepared “Amit Shah absconding” story, but as it was too much baseless, it the story was dropped by the publication.

Some senior journalists believe that rumors about Amit Shah such as possible arrest, possible interrogation, possible summon, possible anticipatory bail application are spread calculatively to create an atmosphere and pressure. Some media houses, some media representatives in partnership with some politicians are playing mind game. Their agenda as of now is to paint Amit Shah as vulnerable case. Some serious journalist friends express worry about how some media persons and media houses do news stories based on speculation and they even use this word ‘speculation’ in their stories.

Final shot is that, please believe PTI(Press Trust of India, still a holy cow) for major news and happenings. If central UPA-Congress govt controlled CBI actually eventually grill Gujarat’s BJP minister Amit Shah, read it on PTI or for say on DeshGujarat. Recently some media houses published reports on CBI’s so called grip on RSS men in connection with bomb blasts in mosques. But on Tuesday, CBI Chief Ashwini Kumar clarified that no RSS member was quizzed in connection with mosque blasts cases.