It’s well-known that except for Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy, rest of the media, including newspapers and television channels, both regional and national, are generally favourable towards the YS Jagan government. Their carrot and stick policy towards the media has been working wonders.
One of the local English newspapers, Deccan Chronicle, is unashamedly pro-Jagan in its reporting. Not a day passes without the paper carrying a highlight about the YSRCP government’s achievements. It goes to any lengths to give positive spin to the government’s decisions.
It’s in this backdrop that DC today carried an editorial on Chief Minister YS Jagan’s statement on making Visakhapatnam as the Capital of the state. Titled “Vizag as AP Capital Welcome”, the puff piece praises the controversial decision of the CM. Calling Amaravati all kinds of names, the edit lauds Jagan for putting ‘an end to the madness’.
The editorial writer also affirms that the announcement will put AP on ‘sustainable development path’, without bothering to enlighten how the two are related.
This edit is a blatant PR job for Jagan, whose messy handling of the capital issue continues to roil the state. The DC promotional piece does not talk about Amaravati, currently the capital of the state or to what happens to the secretariat, assembly and various other offices that are located in and around Amaravati in case of the proposed move. The paper, orignally pro-Congress and now pro-YSRCP, has absolutely nothing to say about 29,000 farmers who have become pawns in the political game being cruelly played by Jagan.
Curiously, the edit is unruffled over the fact that the CM could and should not make such an announcement when the appeal filed by the Jagan government in the Supreme Court is being heard and as such subjudice. As of now, capital cannot be moved from Amaravati as per the judgment of the divison bench of the AP High Court.
The edit, whose sole purpose is to back whatever Jagan does, does not seem to take any of these key factors into accout. It is as if the courts do not matter and their judgments are irrelevant for DC.
“At a time when the issue pending before the Supreme Court and the opposition parties are girding their loins for election campaign, the pronouncement by the Chief Minister is intriguing and leaves one flabbergasted,” said one of its own readers in letters to the editor on the development.
It is difficult for anyone to believe that a paper would indulge in such obfuscation but for some nefarious deal.
