Ranchi, June 15: The BJP national president, Venkaiah Naidu today took a swipe at the media, wondering why a small issue had to be sensationalised. Apparently referring to his recent description of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as 'vikash purush' and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani as 'loha purush', Naidu said cryptically, ''the president presides and the party decides''.

''I have asked one of the media friends why they continued with a story for a week. He (friend) said that for 11 months there was no news ... All your development works are no news for us ... In BJP there is hardly any news, so a small incident gets wide publicity ... It does not happen with Congress because it is flooded with such news,'' Naidu says.

''Any way I got phokotka (free) publicity for a week,'' Naidu, whose comments had raised the hackles of Vajpayee, said with a broad grin.

Bureau Report