Jaitley: compulsive contrarians questioning air strikes

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday hit out at “compulsive contrarians” for questioning air strikes at Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camp in Pakistan, claiming that this was the precise reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to reach out to the people directly.

Jaitley was speaking at a function to launch a book 'Mann ki Baat – A Social Revolution on Radio' here based on the Prime Minister's monthly radio talk.

Referring to the February 26 air-strikes on Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Jaitley said “some people whom I call compulsive contrarians discovered a new Balakote without even checking that, that particular Balakote is not across the LOC but in our own Poonch.”

He said those in public life have to use alternative modes to communicate directly with people, as television news channels were increasingly resorting to “agenda setting” instead of reporting.

Jaitley recalled that he was confronted with a similar situation when Modi was seeking re-election as chief minister of Gujarat in 2002 which he was overseeing as a BJP leader.

“At the time the local media and national media was not exactly a friend of his (Modi's). It was very aggressive against him. Even at that time, the strategy was that when there is agenda-setting instead of reporting, you cannot communicate with people through this medium,” he said.

Jaitley said that through 'Mann Ki Baat' programme, Modi used the medium of radio for governmental communication in order to establish direct communication with people by identifying its wide reach.