Divide & Rule policy of AP &TS governments

Divide and rule was the policy of the British. But the Chief Ministers of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have found advantage in following that dictum even now when it comes to media management.

What should have been a common benefit to the journalist community - healthcare, pensions and housing, have now been doled out to only their YES men in the journalist community. This scenario holds well in both the states -Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The Ministers and top guns of the Chandrababu Naidu government have been following this policy. In all, they have given medical checkup facility to the journalists of their choice - both print and electronic media. "About 75 of them have been given coupons to Care and Kims Hospital for a full medical checkup for theorems and their families," said a staff of the AP Health minister Kamineni Srinivas.

Some of the ministers have doled out other benefits to the scribes of their choice for festivals, coupons from APCO, free trips to Tirupati and Srisailam.

Same is true of the Ministers of Telangana- They have also doled out health cards and other facilities to select scribes from electronic and print media. "About 150 scribes have been benefited from free medical checkups and medicines for about three months. Even in CMRF, the journalists recommended cases have been cleared to the tune of Rs. 25 crore," said a senior staffer of Health minister.

So now it is clear that both the Telangana and AP CMs and the ruling parties' love for publicity and loyalty is better expressed in the form of positive stories in the newspapers and channels, only to beget benefits from the respective Governments.