One could get a taste of how the media report and how the media men are caught in a dualism between Left- and Right even if the situation does not warrant it.
At the press conference on the occasion of inauguration of the Cooperative Week the media men were going after union state minister Mohanbhai Kundariya asking him to explain why Jawaharlal Nehru is being ignored on whose birthday the cooperative week is kicked off every year.
“You have not mentioned his name even once in your speech which shows that you do not value his contribution to the cooperative movement”, said one of the journalists. Kundariya tried to reason out but to little avail.
NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav came to his rescue and reminded the journalists that the function was started first by offering floral tributes to Nehru. No doubt Nehru was a source of inspiration for the cooperative movement but it does not mean that he was one and one alone. There were many after him who have taken the movement to its present heights, Yadav added.
But perhaps because of his penchant for avoidable controversies, the journo’s insistence on saying that it was a deliberate attempt to marginalize Nehru in history provoked Chandra Pal into angrily retorting “we are here not to celebrate Nehruji’s birthday.”
Later he said the media should stop seeing cooperatives through a political prism as it represents all political hues. “We do not think on the party lines”, he stressed.
The journalists in the press conference were a motley crowd who missed the opportunity to raise questions to the minister on real cooperative issues such as amendment in MSCS Act, RBI recommendation of conversion of UCBs, Income tax on co-ops and other pressing issues.
