Ahmedabad, 2 September 2014

Gujarat High Court has disposed off a petition challenging Sonia Gandhi’s photographs in central government advertisements. This plea was filed in year 2012 when Congress-led UPA was in power. A bench of Justice Qureshi and Pardiwala observed that in changed condition, there’s no relevance of this petition.

Plea had questioned Sonia Gandhi’s presence in every central government advertisement without being minister or having any constitutional post in central government.

Author’s note: Do you remember those pages full of advertisements in newspapers on Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversaries and death anniversaries? Thank God that has stopped due to change of power in centre. Recently when there was Rajiv Gandhi’s birth anniversary, none newspaper was carrying any single advertisement. Social media was full of comments that Rajiv Gandhi was remembered by Sonia and her government only through tax payers money. Once access to tax payers money gone, the advertisement have also gone. In another development the Narendra Modi government in centre had recently started publishing page full of advertisements in national newspapers on different occasions. This was criticized on social media. Many through their tweets questioned why poor Government of India should transfer the money daily to rich newspaper like Times of India for full page ads? It seems Modi government has listened to this, and full page ads issued by central government have stopped at least for now.