Distortion of news on Jagan case backfires

They have played up selected leaks repeatedly. They have run hours and hours of programmes loaded with Goebbelsian propaganda. They have tried to tar him black over and over again.

The propaganda against YSRCP president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has no parallel in the history of this nation's politics. These channels, described as Chandrababu's cronies in the media, proclaimed to the world that the CBI is an independent body and that it is doing its job uncompromisingly well. The CBI Joint Director, Lakshminarayana and his team were the blue-eyed boys of these channels and the publications from their stable.

That was when the CBI began its 'impartial' probe in the eyes of this section of the media leading to Jagan's arrest on May 27, 2012. The investigating agency was hailed for its objectivity and fearlessness and its officers were patted on their backs for their probity and integrity. These channels and publications left no stone unturned to criticize the YSRC Party president and hail the CBI as a torch-bearer of truth and justice. Never mind the fact that the CBI says it doesn't have the human resources to probe a scam! Never mind the fact that the 'premier' investigating agency files 'closure reports' in tune with political changes! Never mind that apart from two ministers no other cabinet minister has been charged in the 26 GOs that are being probed, while Jagan, who was neither an MP nor an MLA and against whom no charge has so far been substantiated has been summarily arrested and jailed!

 Cut to late August and early September. Jagan continues to be in prison with the CBI filing four charge-sheets so far against him. The fact that his party had swept the June by-polls and is headed for a landslide win in 2014 has left his political opponents rattled. Their media cronies are not far behind. The very same channels have started criticizing the CBI in television show after show. They have a new conspiracy theory—these channels which had all along supported the Congress in its politics of vengeance and vendetta, now claim that the Congress party had reached a `secret pact’ with Jagan!

When the YSR Congress party criticized the CBI saying that the investigating agency had become a puppet and tool in the hands of the government to keep its minority government in power, these channels had their own tale to tell and preached to us the dictum that 'the law would take its own course'.

Now these channels and publications smell a rat in everything—in the change of government counsel, which is perceived by legal sources as a routine matter with nothing irregular about it.
 
When the government replaced CBI counsel Additional Solicitor-General Haren Rawal and  lawyer Ashok Bhan with a senior lawyer and Additional Solicitor-General, Mohan Jain, this was provocation enough for the yellow media to fly hammer and tongs at the CBI and the government. It came up with a fresh conspiracy theory saying that the central government was trying to dilute the case against Jagan. The TDP expectedly, was not far behind and reacted along predictable lines.

If anything can be inferred at all, it is the fact that the CBI has been leaking stories selectively to representatives from the yellow media and each time Jagan's case comes up for hearing, it reveals some false information and data to them.For the past one month such leaks have been appearing in a section of the media.

The public at large knows by now, where they emanate from, how they find their way to certain chosen 'representatives' of the yellow media and how they are aired ad nauseam!

 -siva@sakshipost