Sakshi Telugu daily has come out with a full-page advertisement on its front page on Tuesday, calling Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s latest enhanced pension scheme a big bluff.
The advertisement sought to explain to the people how the previous Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government had increased the pension from just Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000 in a span of five years – an increase of 300 percent.
Yet, the Naidu government is trying to take credit by giving an insignificant hike in pension and gaining massive publicity at the public expense, the Sakshi advertisement said.
Obviously, it was a self-advertisement given by the YSRCP to Sakshi, its own mouth-piece, as it was not given to any other newspaper.
So, whatever YSRCP wanted to convey by running down the Naidu scheme only to its readers, who are mostly YSRCP sympathisers.
But the interesting point is why the YSRCP has chosen to give a frontpage advertisement to Sakshi.
The daily could have as well carried a big front page story calling Naidu government bluff on the pension scheme and explaining how Jagan’s scheme was much better.
In fact, it would have explained its point in a much better way, which is not possible through the advertisement, as people won’t have patience to go through such explanatory ad.
However, the YSRCP has preferred to give a full-page advertisement.
According to sources, it could be a marketing strategy. Since Sakshi newspaper won’t be getting advertisements from the TDP-led Andhra Pradesh government and there is no possibility of getting big private advertisements as well, it has to sustain on self-ads.
“Such self-ads will help the promoters to convert their black money into white. Besides, it will also help create confidence in the advertisers’ market that Sakshi is not down and out and is still a big force in the media,” sources said.
