The BJP’s “prime ministerial candidate” Narendra Modi has, at best, enjoyed a tenuous relationship with the media and media professionals.
Although media houses which he spurned are now eating out of his hands, the Gujarat chief minister continues to be generally more comfortable with owners, whom he gives helicopter rides or calls on personally while visiting their cities.
But in Mysore, on Tuesday, Modi made space for journalist Pratap Simha, the 36-year-old columnist of Kannada Prabha, who is the official BJP candidate from Mysore.
Simha, who created a stir with his blazing Saturday columns at the Rajeev Chandrasekhar–owned Kannada Prabha and previously at the Times of India–owned Vijaya Karnataka, was the alleged target of a “terror” plot in 2012, in which a journalist was named. The police claim, however, fell flat.
Let the record show that a journalist who had never seen the sun rise, now begins his day at 6 am.
Let the record also show that at extreme left is the former Karnataka minister S.A. Ramadas, whose threat to commit suicide was caught on live television.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
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Mr. Modi called him within minutes of his returning home and asked, “What is your agenda?”
And when Mr. Modi calls up a journalist, it’s international news too.