Remember Raji Teja-starrer superhit film Kick? Popular comedian Brahmanandam, who is taken for a ride by Ravi Teja, tells heroine Ileana: “Everybody here is thinking he has started his own game. But they are not realising that they are all just players in the game started by him.”
Well, that is what has happened in Maharashtra. Veteran leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thakre – all of them have thought that they had played a wonderful game to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party.
But little did they realise that they were playing into the hands of BJP boss Amit Shah with the support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Till late on Friday night, the game was in the hands of Shiv Sena-Congress-NCP combine. It was decided that Uddhav Thakre will be the chief minister for the next five years, while Congress and NCP would get one deputy CM post each.
So, newspapers on Saturday – including Eenadu, Andhra Jyothy and Sakshi carried the report that Uddhav will take oath as chief minister. In fact, for Eenadu, it was a banner story, while the remaining two major dailies carried a single column report on the front page.
But things changed dramatically on Saturday morning. NCP dumped Shiv Sena and joined hands with the BJP to form the government.
Early in the morning, Devendra Fadnavis took oath as the chief minister of Maharashtra once again, while Ajit Pawar, nephew of Sharad Pawar, was sworn in as the deputy CM. What an anti-climax?
Coming to Andhra Pradesh issues, chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s direction to the officials to implement all his promises without fail made the headlines in all the three major Telugu dailies.
Only headlines were different. Eenadu focussed on Rachabanda, Andhra Jyothy headline screamed that every promise should be implemented and Sakshi highlighted Jagan’s statemen that works should begin for any project within four weeks of laying of foundation.
The new bar licencing policy, which interests common readers, also found a place on the front pages of the three major dailies prominently. Cancellation of existing bar licences, 40 per cent reduction in number of bars and steep increase in liquor prices in bars have been highlighted in the newspapers as lead stories.
Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy highlighted on the Centre’s decision to rectify the error in India map by incorporating Amaravati’s name as capital of Andhra Pradesh, apparently to give credit to Telugu Desam Party MP Galla Jayadev. Sakshi has conveniently ignored the same.
As is its won’t, Andhra Jyothy carried a negative story on Jagan as the second lead: giving prominence to the petition of the Central Bureau of Investigation in the court seeking to conduct trial separately in 11 different charge sheets filed against him. Eenadu pushed it inside while Sakshi ignored it.
There is an interesting story in Sakshi on how the Centre is denying the states their legitimate share in the GST revenues. While Andhra Pradesh was supposed to get around Rs 1950 crore till now from the Centre, it got only Rs 529 crore. It said the states are planning to move the court for a legal battle.
