Chief Minister K Rosaiah’s recent review with his ministerial colleagues has become a hot topic among the media circles. The CM’s attack on Sakshi newspaper, which he preferred to call pro-Congress paper, is particularly the pick of the discussions.

Everybody is now curious to know if the Rosaiah-Jagan cold war is still alive, if so, what’s the latest and who is having the last laugh. But most of them are ending up with a hearty laugh the moment they are told about the way Rosaiah tried to project the issue in his favour.

Rosaiah reportedly fumed in front of the ministers that how can Sakshi newspaper write negative stories about the government despite getting so many government advertisements? “Is this what for we give so many ads,” he asked the ministers.

The point that Rosaiah is either not aware of or simply missing here is that the allocation of advertisements does not always happen on the ‘show-mercy’ premises but as per set standards.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation (famously known with its acronym ‘ABC’) periodically releases the circulation figures of registered newspapers in every language. It is mandatory for the government to first issue advertisements to the top two newspapers and to the rest at its discretion and as per the budget.

This is where Sakshi Chairman and Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy produced an innovative, path-breaking ace. He managed to keep Sakshi’s circulation constantly at around 11 lakhs ever since its inception, even if it meant huge losses initially. His idea was to be in the top two of the ABC list and he had achieved that with ease.

This effectively takes way the option to exclude either Eenadu or Sakshi irrespective of their nature of relationship with the government of the day. We can understand Rosaiah’s frustration but not his ignorance on such simple issues. Poor CM doesn’t even know that this is exactly the reason why and how Eenadu has been getting government advertisements over the last 7-8 years and even during its dirty fight with YSR