Under 'press'-ure

Chairman of Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) Gourishankar Agrawal, a powerful local BJP leader close to Chief Minister Raman Singh, conspicuously avoided meeting the media these past five years. This changed when the corporation came under fire from the opposition Congress over a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report highlighting serious irregularities in the allotment of a coal block. Agrawal hurriedly convened a press conference, prompting a journalist to comment that the CAG should be thanked for propelling him into meeting reporters. But the press conference was so badly organised that it was a fiasco. Agrawal was later heard remarking acerbically to one of his assistants that his team clearly had no experience in organising press meets. How could it when the head himself did not give it any opportunity to hold one earlier?