Raipur : It began as an expose: the story of how Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh’s relatives allegedly received illegal mining contracts in Madhya Pradesh. Then, a tale of arm-twisting: government officials forced cable operators to pull out the news channel, Etv MP, that aired the story. Now, the story has a twist: Allegations of a failed “paid-news” deal.
Officials claim that the channel carried the report—which Singh claims is baseless—after the government refused to budge to its demand for “paid news.”
“It’s sad that the government is being blackmailed to resort to paid news. We cannot succumb to such journalism,” government spokesperson N Baijdendra Kumar told The Indian Express.
A series of letters written by Jagdish Chandra Qatil, Urdu and Hindi channel head of Etv Network, to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) shows the channel demanded a 100 per cent increase in the government’s advertisement budget for electronic media, removal of a senior government official and had threatened not to carry government advertisements till the demands were met.
”During 2010-11, the PRO released advertisements of around Rs 2 crore to Etv MP, while channel’s annual budget is around Rs 20 crore… In such situation… popular policies of state government do not get space on the channels… Etv is number one channel of Chhattisgarh. Its advertisement amount should be equal to the advertisement amount of (the) number one newspaper (Dainik Bhaskar),” read the letter by Chandra on March 30.
Officials and the channel held talks. On May 10, Chandra acknowledged a “Rs 3-crore annual advertisement package” in lieu of which the channel “shall provide live coverage and logistic support to welfare schemes on merit.”
The agreement then collapsed due to “non-cooperative behaviour of certain officials” and Chandra wrote another letter to the Chief Minister on July 25. “If you could pass on a word to PR officials to ensure that to implement a Rs 3 crore annual advertisement commitment, Rs 40 lakh monthly package is required but so far only Rs 15 lakh has been released… Once you ensure this, I am sure there shall not be any communication gap between the channel and the PR department… As far as editorial issues are concerned, you can always express your views to Shailesh Pandey (the channel’s Chhattisgarh bureau chief).”
In a letter on September 12, Chandra demanded a bigger slice of the advertising pie. “80-85 % of advertisement budget for media goes to print media… under such circumstances no regional channel can be financially independent. From April-August 2011, Navbharat (a local paper) got Rs 2.93 crore and Dainik Bhaskar got Rs 2.3 crore advertisement. Together, these papers get advertisement worth minimum Rs 15 crore annually…” He then demanded “a separate budget of Rs 20 crore for electronic media, whose provision could be included in the supplementary budget”.
In 2008-09, the channel got around Rs 98 lakh in advertisement from the government which went up by 100 per cent to Rs 2 crore in a year.
As the government still did not pay heed to Chandra’s suggestions, he shot off another letter to Raman Singh on September 18 in which he demanded removal of a senior official and reminded about Rs 20 crore budget for electronic media, adding that “until you decide these crucial issues, we will not accept advertisements of this government in protest”.
Refuting the charges of blackmail, Chandra admitted to have written the letters and claimed it’s his right to demand advertisement. “Hum to ailaniya taur per kehte hain ki haan ye vigyapan ka masla hai. Every channel has a right to demand advertisement. We are not blackmailing anyone, not asking in cash, but in cheque, not just for us but for all channels. We have written to five CMs,” Chandra told The Sunday Express.
Asked if it was appropriate for him to demand the removal of senior officials and threaten to reject advertisements, he said: “Their behaviour has been very humiliating towards our marketing people. They promised to give us advertisement but never gave… we were humiliated. We had to reject.”
Raman Singh has termed the report a “bundle of lies and concoction” and has slapped Rs 1-crore defamation suits on Etv and Patrika, the newspaper that carried the report.
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