[cr-india] Ready, steady: Jaipal Reddy (Economic Times)

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

Ready, steady: Jaipal Reddy  [ECONOMIC TIMES]

[ SUNDAY, MAY 23, 2004 07:03:31 AM ]

A veteran politician, 62-year-old Jaipal Sudini Reddy has made his mark
through the nineties as the 'spokesperson' for successive outfits -- Janata
Dal, the United Front, Third Front and now, of course, the Congress too.
While scribes who interacted with him through the choppy seas of coalition
governments have never found him offensive or evasive, he is known to coin
clever and apt phrases, earning the label of 'phrase-monger'.

This time around, he has won from the Miryalaguda Parliamentary
constituency, though rivals projected him as a "non-local, high profile
Delhi-level leader". Miryalguda was given to Reddy by none other than Sonia
Gandhi in 1999 when he left the Janata Dal to return to Congress.

Reddy started his political career with the Congress and headed the Youth
Congress unit of Andhra Pradesh in the late sixties. He became Andhra PCC
general secretary in 1969 and held the office for three years. Between 1969
and 1984, he was active in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly.

Known as a bitter critic of the Congress post-Emergency and Indira Gandhi,
Reddy remained a secularist, though he left the party post Emergency.

As part of the Janata Dal, he became a Parliamentarian. As leader of the
Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from 1991 to 1992, he made a strong
impression.

Reddy was I&B minister in the UF government. His regime was marked by his
attempts to grant complete autonomy to Prasar Bharati which runs All India
Radio and Doordarshan. At that time, he believed that there was no further
role for the I&B ministry after DD and AIR gained autonomy.

Reddy is the brain behind the Broadcast Regulatory Authority Bill from which
the much-talked about Communication Convergence Bill took its roots. He is
known to be in favour of a regulator for the broadcasting sector before
ushering in new technologies -- in fact Direct-To-Home services was banned
under his tenure precisely due to the lack of a regulatory body.

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