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REGIONAL ROUNDUP

As in the case of the English-language dailies, the non-English-language dailies also reported on the allegations relating to Finance Minister P Chidambaram's wife Nalini accepting the legal brief of the Income Tax Department while her husband was the finance minister, but most took the view that while it was an impropriety and inappropriate, few called for his resignation.

Dinamalar's coverage of the Chidambaram episode suggested that it was not considered a big issue in Tamil Nadu. Though the ammunition was provided by the AIADMK, the issue hardly attracted wide attention.

Also the fact that AIADMK is largely isolated, while the other major political parties fought the last election on a common platform may have accounted for the muted response from most politicians, and by extension, media coverage.

On August 28, the paper had a report on Nalini Chidambaram explaining that arguing in favour of the Income Tax Department was not illegal and P Chidambaram had nothing to do with this. And two days later, there was a report on the parliamentary proceedings where Chidambaram said that had he been aware of the matter, he would not have let his wife take up the case.

In Karnataka, Praja Vani had a lead edit on this issue on August 31 quoting the AIADMK, which said that the FM has violated the oath of office and hence should resign. Vijaya Karnataka had a lead edit arguing that all the facts should come out at the earliest. Kannada Prabha delved deep into this issue and reported matters relating to Chidambaram's son.

According to its report, Karthik Chidambaram is a major shareholder in a spinning mill owned by Chidambaram's brother and they had evaded tax when they had bought a new machine in the recent past.

Apparently, this firm had hired Nalini Chidambaram to plead their case, which she eventually lost (this spinning mill, though, was not part of the current Nalini Chidambaram case).

The AIADMK, according to Kannada Prabha, has over the past been fighting a battle to oust Chidambaram and with this issue has found a new weapon.

However, the report also added that Sonia Gandhi is satisfied with Chidambaram's explanation that he was not aware on his wife's appointment and so he would not be dropped from the Cabinet.

The major Telugu dailies, Eenadu, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothi carried the outcome of Chidambaram's statement rocking the upper house of Parliament on the inside pages on Tuesday.

Eenadu carried a blurb on the front page with a turn to a page two anchor that said Chidambaram was in deep trouble and that his son bought shares of a textile mill against whom the CBDT fought a case.

Vaartha carried it on page three and said it was unfair favouritism. The Parliament Durbar column of Vaartha carried the proceedings of the houses and said the wakalat put the upper house in a heated debate.