Amit Shah addresses a 'paathshala'

A television media conclave at Ashoka Hotel here on Saturday afternoon, as a part of the 3rd anniversary celebrations of Narendra Modi government, virtually turned out to be a powerful and effective "Paathshala" for ministers and the media.

The conclave was chaired by BJP president Amit Shah, who was sitting in a very cool and composed mood, carefully listening to an hour-long presentation made by Power Minister Piyush Goyal on the achievements of Modi government in the last three years. Goyal happened to be the sole speaker, in the presence of Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and media personalities Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami, Navika Kumar, Arun Puri, Supriya Prasad, Rahul Kanwal, Jagdeesh Chandra and Sudhir Chaudhary.

In this way, it was a powerful show for the ministers and media, where Shah virtually acted as a silent principal of a Media "Paathshala". This was perhaps for the first time that almost 100 per cent invitees attended the function.

Shah's own office personally and meticulously monitored the entire invitation exercise and phone calls were made to senior television professionals by party functionaries to ensure that every media person gets a proper invitation in a decent and dignified manner.

In this entire exercise, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore was also actively involved along with his cabinet colleague Goyal for the last one month. It was virtually a disciplined show, where everybody sat quiet and listened to the keynote speaker Goyal.

After the speech, everybody met Shah and other Union ministers, especially Jaitley to share their views.

English media's main focus was Jaitely though there was a sense of craze and excitement to say hello to party president Shah. The main focus of informal discussions between the media and Shah was upcoming Presidential election. The united Opposition meeting at Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's place was also discussed at length by media persons.

The entire show lasted for more than two hours and everybody appeared to be happy and satisfied with the menu of the lunch. This was the first phase of "Paathshala", which will continue on Sunday. Senior editors from print media have been invited over lunch and the entire regional media of the country will meet Shah and other Union ministers over dinner.

The single line message of the conclave was that the entire media appears to be in "tune" with the ruling government and the ruling party. This may be a new beginning for the present government's relationship with the television media. No BJP president ever before got such a massive response and attention from media, as it happened in Saturday's function.