Former chief minister and TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu and his party leaders have been making hue and cry over the State government’s decision to decentralise existing powers of defamation.
The government had extended the monitoring and defamation powers from the Information and Public Relations commissioner to the secretaries of all the departments, which is now vehemently opposed by the TDP and the media that supports Naidu.
Naidu, in the last five years, is no exception to silence the media.
He had prevented the Sakshi group from visiting the TDP office and had not allowed the Sakshi journalists, both print and electronic media to the Block I in the Velagapudi secretariat, where the CMO was established.
Naidu, as chief minister, had also issued a couple of GOs to take action against the Sakshi group and had even authorised Real Time Governance chief executive Babu Ahmad, through GOs to take action against Sakshi and its editorial head.
This happened twice, GO RT No. 692 on March 25, 2019 and GO RT No. 733 on March 28, 2019, delegating the powers from Information and Public Relations Commissioner.
Surprisingly, the same leaders are now trying to find fault with the YSR Congress government and chief minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy for delegating powers from I & PR commissioner to the secretaries of the departments.
Minister Botsa Satyanarayana and former minister C Ramachandraiah have nailed Naidu on this and said that it was Naidu who had shown the way for this government to delegate the defamation powers.
But, unmindful of his own initiatives to silence the media, Naidu is now trying to reap some political benefits by criticising the government and backing his own pampered media.
