Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is learnt to have asked the authorities to keep in abeyance the government order that sought to recruit 25 journalists on outsourcing basis to do public relations work in the Chief Minister’s Office.
The GO, which was issued on December 7, went viral in the social media and was reported by national dailies after noted Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan tweeted finding fault with the Andhra Pradesh chief minister for “bribing” journalists to do his publicity and PR work.
The Andhra Pradesh I&PR department tried to defend the same saying it was only taking the help of journalists who were either retired or out of jobs to do the back-end PR work for the CMO, since it had no sufficient staff after bifurcation.
But the news reports created an embarrassing situation for Naidu and he immediately asked the department to keep the GO in abeyance. He suggested that if necessary, the department can recruit a few regular staff members for the PR work.
