Sans interaction, Mann Ki Baat fails to strike a chord

Hundreds of residents from Mangaluru and the neighbouring areas, who were looking forward to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's live interaction at the T V Raman Pai Convention Centre, returned hugely disappointed on Sunday.

The BJP district unit, in its invite that had flooded social media, had also declared that interaction with the people would be a part of the programme. The posters circulated had declared that Modi would interact with five prominent personalities of the district.

The programme, however, ended up with the organisers projecting the Doordarshan telecast of ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on a huge screen at the venue.

Many in the audience vouched on having come prepared in order to draw the prime minister’s attention to specific issues. The public also complained about the needless confusion over the programme timings. The telefilm ‘Chalo Jeethe Hain’, based on the childhood of Modi was screened prior to ‘Mann Ki Baat’, which was from 11 am to 11.30 am. The telecast included a recorded opinion of Shaithan Sinha, a visually challenged person from Bikaner, Rajasthan.

Immediately as the ‘Mann Ki Baat’ ended, former MLC Capt Ganesh Karnik thanked the audience for being present. Sounding apologetic, he said that although the Doordarshan crew present at the venue had uplinked the live video of audience witnessing the ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme at the venue, the visuals could not be streamed by Doordarshan due to technical glitches. The recorded visuals of Mangaluru programme would appear as a part of a re-telecast of ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme in Doordarshan, Capt Karnik said.

Mangaluru MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, DK Zilla Panchayat President Meenakshi Shantigodu, MLAs D Vedavyas Kamath, Dr Y Bharat Shetty and Umanath Kotian were also present.