The newly formed Congress government in Telangana led by chief minister A Revanth Reddy appears to have decided to pay the Bharat Rashtra Samithi led by former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in its own coin.
On Wednesday, the Congress government released full-page advertisements to various newspapers on the launch of week-long “Praja Palana” starting December 28, where the official machinery will receive applications from the people on implementation of six guarantees, promised by the party before the elections.
So far so good. While almost all the major daily newspapers got the advertisements, they were not seen on Namaste Telangana, the mouth piece of BRS and its sister publication in English, Telangana Today.
The reason is obvious. Both these newspapers have been attacking the Revanth Reddy government from the Day 1 and of late, have stepped up the attack, besides highlighting the BRS and the previous KCR government.
In fact, Namaste Telangana and Telangana Today, too, received the government advertisements from the Congress government in the first few days, including on the day of Revanth Reddy’s swearing-in as the chief minister.
But when they began attacking the ruling party in the subsequent days, the Revanth government thought enough is enough. It wants to pay the BRS in its own coin by denying them advertisements.
It may be recalled that when KCR was in power, he did not give advertisements to any newspaper that was critical of his government.
For example, Andhra Jyothy and its affiliated channel ABN-Andhra Jyothy did not get a single advertisement from the BRS government in the last eight years.
Similarly, Velugu and V6 television channel, too, did not get any advertisements from the KCR government, after their chairman G Vivek pared ways with the BRS and joined the BJP and later the Congress.
In fact, KCR openly declared that there was no question of extending any benefits to the newspapers which were writing negative reports against his government. He even said the reporters belonging to these media houses won’t be given even land sites.
Now, the Congress government is giving a tit-for-tat to the BRS leaders. In the coming days, there is no surprise if the Namaste Telangana reporters do not get housing plots, as a retaliatory measure!
