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Congress rates its TV spokespersons

'Performance' is the measure and the party is seriously going about the task, to ensure telling rendition on all channels

Congress workers celebrate the victory

Kavita Chowdhury New Delhi
Battered by a bad run in the economy and seemingly bested by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi, the Congress party has embarked on a performance audit of its spokespersons, as part of a revamped media strategy.

The strategy lays special emphasis on its ‘image’ as projected on television channels. Daily performance assessments of its TV spokespersons are being sent in the form of reports to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.  

The new communications department under Ajay Maken has ‘performance’ as its buzzword. Maken has been charged with the task of ensuring the spokespersons perform.

Party leaders confirm an external agency is assessing the spokespersons on a number of parameters — eloquence, articulateness, ability to aggressively counter points of view, the points  raised. The assessment also notes how the television anchor on a particular channel conducted the debate and the ultimate perception of the Congress spokesperson.

Daily reports are being obtained by the communications department and sent to Rahul Gandhi. “While the aim is to beef up the quality of our spokesperson, it is obvious that underperformers will be weeded out,” says a highly placed source.

In May, the Congress had expanded its list of spokespersons to 36, so that more were available to represent it at the burgeoning number of TV channels. Earlier this month, two media coordinators, S V Ramani and Deepak Amin, were specifically appointed to coordinate with these TV panelists. Their task is to ensure properly researched and well informed speakers appear on TV shows. Channels are expected to put forward their requests with them early every morning; the names are then approved and sent to the channels. A daily media spokespersons’ briefing takes place at noon, to ensure they’re well informed on a variety of issues.  

It’s little wonder that Rahul Gandhi commented at the media training workshop last month that Maken had a “difficult” task.  

Figuring among the 36 are the regular spokespersons -- Renuka Chowdhury, Sandeep Dikshit, Bhakta Charan Das, Meem Afzal, Randeep Surjewala. Union ministers in this list include information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, minister of state for human resource development Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for urban development Deepa Dasmunsi, minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajeev Shukla, corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot, minister of state for home affairs R P Singh, Youth Congress chief Rajiv Satav and Ashok Tanwar. Abhishek Manu Singhvi has made a comeback as a party face on TV.  

Plans are afoot to expand this panel and induct new faces, as only a handful are considered to have been “effective” Congress faces on TV. New talent could be inducted, say sources.

Party sympathisers such as Rajeev Gowda, a professor of public policy at IIM, Bangalore, and a party spokesman in Karnataka, and Priyanka Chaturvedi, a blogger and a member of the Mumbai Youth Congress, have already been invited to be part of the media bandwagon. Sanjay Jha of ‘Hamara Congress’  is also a popular face on TV networks.
 

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First Published: Aug 21 2013 | 11:58 PM IST

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