Why Is Yellow Media Peddling Patent Falsehoods About YS Jagan?

Of late, the Yellow media is incessantly peddling falsehoods about YS Jagan's name being part of a list of accused in Enforcement Directorate cases. What shocks discerning reader is the peddling of patent untruths. The Yellow Media cabal which is in cahoots with the ruling dispensation, religiously avoids the news about Chandrababu's corruption and his involvement in the cash for votes scam. But, when it comes to YS Jagan, it throws caution to winds and churns out wholly misleading stories.

That YS Jagan has ED cases since 2011 August is common knowledge. The cases are being investigated and the courts are conducting hearings. It is also public knowledge that these cases were filed to wreak vengeance on YS Jagan for his defiance of Sonia Gandhi. Both Congress leader Shankar Rao and Chandrababu Naidu have admitted in so many words that the cases were part of the Congress vendetta against YS Jagan. It is also clear that YS Jagan has neither shied away from the cases and nor run away.

No link to any shell company

Yet, the Yellow Media has recently churned out stories that Jagan is linked to 31 shell companies. This is completely false. If those who invested in YS Jagan's companies have links to someone having a shell company, by no stretch of imagination can one claim that YS Jagan has shell accounts. Yet, the TDP's satellite media has written stories insinuating YS Jagan with utter disregard for journalistic norms and ethics. The same media house had written false stories that YS Jagan had given a letter about ED case to Prime Minister Modi when he met the latter on May 10. To support their falsehood, they quoted a letter written way back in February. So much for their journalistic ethics.

There seems to be a strategy in all this. Someone from the investigation agencies create a falsehood. This gets lapped up by the Yellow Media, which adds spice and garnishes the news. Anti-Jagan media trumpets the story as Gospel truth. TDP leaders and Chandrababu quote these media reports to attack YS Jagan. Interestingly, whenever such allegations cropped up, YS Jagan challenged the powers that be to prove them. Every time, they refused to pick up the gauntlet. Instead, they invented another falsehood.

Why these stories now?

But, the important question is - why are these stories appearing at this point of time? It is because the ruling TDP is jittery over the massive response to YS Jagan's Praja Sankalpa Yatra. The milling crowds and litany of complaints against the Government are unnerving the TDP. So, it is peddling these stories to attack the yatra.

Curiously, Yellow Media's is a classic case of pot calling kettle black. The Panama Papers have revealed that Heritage Foods director Motaparthi Sivaram Varaprasad has links to questionable companies. His links with MP Holding Associates, Boulevard Ltd, Bitkemi Ventures and other offshore ventures in countries like Togo and Ghana have been established beyond doubt. He has shares in shell companies of British Virgin Islands, Equador, Ghana and Panama. But, neither the Yellow media nor Chandababu speaks about it.

One gets a doubt if this is also an attempt to influence the court case. The CBI has not prove any misdemeanor on YS Jagan's part so far. The ED has not uncovered anything new. Even the ED website remains deafeningly silent about it. Yet, the Yellow Media hullabaloo continues.