When Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy was the chief minister of combined Andhra Pradesh, Eenadu Telugu daily led by media Mughal Ch Ramoji Rao took an aggressive stand against his government, attacking his policies day in and day out.
Despite facing legal troubles from YSR in the Margadarshi episode, Ramoji Rao did not yield to pressures and continued to target the government. The reason was Eenadu was reigning supreme in the media world those days.
Now, Ramoji Rao and his Eenadu are no more superpowers in the media. While he has lost his sting over the years due to age, Eenadu has lost its glory post bifurcation of the combined state, stiff competition from Sakshi and overall slump in the media market.
In Telangana, business interests are paramount for Ramoji Rao and so, he doesn’t dare to adopt an aggressive stand against Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. Since the TDP is no force in Telangana, Ramoji Rao also has no political interests here.
In Andhra, too, Ramoji Rao adopted a soft stand towards Jagan initially because the latter was a good friend of KCR. But in the last few months, Eenadu once again started taking an aggressive stand against the Jagan government – partially because of it is pro-TDP and also because of strained relations between Jagan and KCR.
So, it is now carrying anti-Jagan stories regularly to trouble his government. It has been able to collect even crucial and confidential information from even the chief minister’s office to publish negative reports against the Jagan government.
According to sources, there are several officials, employees and even police officials in the Jagan government who have been covertly passing on crucial information to Eenadu regularly to enable it to carry negative stories. Some of them had even lobbied between Ramoji Rao and Jagan in the initial days.
It is learnt some leaders of employees’ unions, who are not happy with Jagan for various reasons are also playing important role in the leak of documents and confidential information to Eenadu.
Sources said during the recent cabinet meeting, Jagan expressed anger over the way confidential information was being leaked to the pro-TDP media. He wondered how the intelligence authorities also failed to identify these pro-TDP moles in the government.
There is a suspicion that the information is being leaked to Eenadu only by those who are said to be Jagan’s close confidants who are in key positions in the government and even in the CMO.
“It is time Jagan should stop believing people around him and keep a surveillance on them. Only then would he be able to identify the real culprits,” a YSRC source said.
