NEW DELHI, February 13: Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill may have announced that political parties will not be allowed any advertising on television, but neither the Congress nor the southern networks seem to be aware of the ruling.Four films made for the Congress by Madhyam advertising agency and Anuradha Prasad's BAG Films, focusing on the history of the party, the "sacrifice" of the family, the achievements of the party and its future, have been airing on Sun TV, Eenadu, Udaya TV and Asianet. The punchline is "Poore desh se naata hai/Sarkar chalana aata hai" and it is clearly in violation of the CEC's guidelines.Kalanadhi Maran of Sun TV says he told the Congress that getting permission from the Election Commission was the party's "headache". "But just to be sure, we checked with the Election Commission office in Chennai. They were not even aware of any such guideline by the CEC," he adds.The Congress is equally defensive about its television campaign. A party spokesman says, "Thesenetworks have assured us they will get a stay from the courts if the CEC objects to our advertisements, claiming a violation of their fundamental rights". A spokesman at the Election Commission wasn't even aware that the advertisements were running. The Congress budget for advertising on the southern networks is a substantial Rs one crore, although the Finance Ministry had allowed a limit of Rs 2 crore.The BJP, on the other hand, is playing it safe. The party has three 20-minute films ready to drive home the "Stable Government, Able Leader" message. The bottomline for the three ad films is: You can either vote for the BJP or for another election/ You can either vote for the BJP or for confusion/ You can either vote for the BJP or for chaos.But though the Finance Ministry as well as the Reserve Bank of India cleared rupee payment by political parties to satellite networks for advertisements, as a one-time exception, the BJP does not want to "violate the CEC's guidelines", says a member of Task Force, afour-man team drawn from advertising agencies.The BJP print campaign comprised about 10 advertisements while the Congress counter, which got off only less than three days ago, is limited to "three or four", that too only in the regional press in North India. The party spokesman says the decision on the print campaign came very late because it was preceded by a lot of "debate". Advertising industry sources say, however, that the artworks for the ads were ready as early as Saturday but Congress President Sitaram Kesri was not releasing the funds - apparently because he was miffed at not being projected properly.But its own laggardness has not prevented the Congress from taking on the BJP's print campaign. It has released a photograph of a bridge in Lodi Estate, claiming that it was the site for the "PG Hostel in Hyderabad" used in the BJP kick-off to its print campaign. All India Congress Committee Joint Secretary (Publicity) Jairam Ramesh scoffs at the blooper, saying if the BJP can make such a basicmistake in its ad campaign, it is hardly likely to run the country with any amount of efficiency.
