Forget about the style of functioning and their priorities, there is one striking difference between the previous Telugu Desam Party government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu and the present YSR Congress party government led by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh.
The difference is getting publicity to the government programmes and personally to the chief ministers.
Naidu was an out-and-out publicity savvy chief minister and used to give huge advertisements to the media houses for each and every small scheme.
Irrespective of whether the benefits of the schemes have reached the actual beneficiaries or not, Naidu was banking on huge publicity.
He used to personally address press conferences to publicise the launch of his schemes, apart from giving advertisements to the media.
And if there is any bigger scheme like Polavaram project or Amaravati works, Naidu government also used to bring national media correspondents from Delhi to get massive publicity.
The TDP government used to spend Rs 350-400 crore every year on just advertisements to the media, apart from the expenditure incurred on media junkets and outdoor publicity.
Now, Jagan is avoiding all such unwarranted expenditure.
He believes in the theory that the beneficiaries of his schemes themselves would provide word-of-mouth publicity for him and his party and there is no need for any additional expenditure on media advertisements or junkets.
Only if it is necessary, his government wants to give advertisements to the media. Thus, over a period of five years, Jagan wants to save at least Rs 2,000 crore.
And he is planning to use this money saved from avoiding unnecessary publicity on paying salaries to the village secretaries and village volunteers who would bring the administration to the doorsteps of the people and extend all benefits.
“This will not only bring the required publicity to the government through village secretaries and volunteers, but also create a solid vote bank for the YSRC in the next five years,” an analyst said.
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