One of the assignments for the Information and Broadcasting Ministry after about a year of Modi rule was to monitor…
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One of the assignments for the Information and Broadcasting Ministry after about a year of Modi rule was to monitor social media for comments /criticism on various government policies and programmes. Facebook posts and tweets, among others, came in for a laborious search daily by about 50 IT professionals seated at Soochna Bhavan on Lodi Road.
Within no time, hundreds of comments started streaming in to various ministries and departments via the Nodal I and B Ministry for responses. The all-powerful PMO was kept in the loop and responses were obtained in most cases.
The initial enthusiasm seems to be over now, judging by what officials say. Comments and critiques are routinely sent to the concerned ministries and departments who hardly bother to respond. Most public queries and comments are of routine nature hardly deserving a response, it is explained. Will there be a stock-taking of this exercise at the end of three years of NDA rule? Only the PMO can tell.
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Return of Pranab?
Believe it or not, but some senior politicians are thinking along the lines of roping in President Pranab Mukherjee as leader of the combined Opposition for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections after he demits his constitutional post on July 25. According to a senior politicians privy to such thinking, there is no constitutional bar for the incumbent President to rejoin politics.
It is felt the move will instantly ignite the Opposition with all parties agreeing to work under Mukherjee’s leadership. Even the first family of the Congress, it is surmised, will have no difficulty acknowledging his leadership at a time when the party is in wilderness. Mukherjee, after all, has been the senior most leader of the Congress party for a long time. The big question is, will Mukherjee ever agree?
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