The Central government’s decision to impose President’s rule in Maharashtra was the major issue that hit the headlines in major Telugu newspapers in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday.
However, controversial issues like sand shortage, multiple marriages of actor-politician Pawan Kalyan and Jagan government’s decision to introduce English as the medium of instruction continued to dominate the front pages of these dailies.
Sakshi is the only newspaper which carried a big flyer on the Central Board of Direct Taxes’ statement that it had busted a hawala racket worth Rs 3,300-crore that was spread across multiple cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad with links to "leading corporate houses" in the infrastructure sector.
The Sakshi story confined the CBDT statement to Rs 150 crore racket involving corporate biggies from Andhra.
It pointed out a series of IT raids on then Telugu Desam Party leaders like Sujana Chowdary earlier this year and also an infrastructure major whose promoter is closely related to a media baron (obviously referring to Navayuga) and bagged the Polavaram contract at escalated value.
Otherwise, both Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy took the Maharashtra drama as the lead story, explaining how the Centre gained control over the state taking advantage of the uncertainty in the government formation. Sakshi relegated this development to a single column on the right side of the page.
For Sakshi, the lead story, however, is chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s review on the implementation of government schemes and selection of beneficiaries in a transparent and speedy manner.
Interestingly, Jagan’s review meeting was also a second lead story in Andhra Jyothy. The lead point, however, is the decision to introduce beneficiary card for every scheme. The conduct of state-level survey to identify beneficiaries, conduct of sand week from Thursday to ensure adequate supply of sand and strict vigilance on those indulging in corruption in sand supply were the highlights of this story.
The same story was also prominently highlighted by Eenadu, but below the fold on the front page. It highlights availability of two lakhs tonnes every day and crackdown on corruption in sand supply.
Sakshi has completely ignored the termination of agreement with Singapore government-led consortium to develop start-up area in Amaravati, while Eenadu made it a big story on page-1 below the fold.
“Singapore left Amaravati” screamed the headline in Eenadu, saying the start-up area project was cancelled with mutual consent. Interestingly, even Andhra Jyothy did not attach much importance to it and pushed it into the inside pages.
Another national story on the likely judgement of Supreme Court on bringing chief justice of India into the purview of Right to Information Act also figured as a major story in both Sakshi and Eenadu, while Andhra Jyothy did not consider it as a priority item.
The ugly debate over Pawan Kalyan’s polygamy has become a frontpage story for all the three big Telugu newspapers.
While Eenadu was confined to only Pawan’s outburst asking Jagan whether the latter had gone to jail only because of the former’s multiple marriages, both Sakshi and Andhra Jyothy carried the version of information minister Perni Nani, who attacked Jana Sena chief, describing him as Pawan Naidu.
The debate over English as the medium of instruction was yet another issue that figured prominently in the three major dailies.
Eenadu carried it as an anchor story, highlighting the movement to save mother tongue launched by as many as 39 organisations under the umbrella of Forum for Telugu as Medium of Instruction.
Andhra Jyothy, too, carried an anchor story on this issue as a big debate and carried the argument that both Telugu and English should be there for medium of instruction.
Sakshi carried only a pointer to the statement of State BC Welfare Association president Janga Krishna Murthy who alleged that the debate against English medium was only to benefit corporate schools and deny advantage to the government schools.
Apart from these common stories, each newspaper has its own priority news on the front page. Eenadu carried small reports on senior journalist Rajat Sharma opposing the media gag order issued by the Jagan government and a curtain raiser on Chandrababu Naidu’s Sand Deeksha on Thursday.
Sakshi carried a small story on Modi’s visit to Brazil for BRICS meeting and Andhra Jyothy published a report on RTI commission’s order against secret GOs of the state governments.
