Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu’s decision to grace the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Kollam Press Club on February 2 at Kollam district headquarters has not gone down well with a section of the media, and state BJP unit.
The reason: Kollam Press Club is in the thick of a major scam with some of its office-bearers facing serious allegations of embezzlement of public funds allotted by the state government to upgrade facilities in the club. The state BJP leaders fear the Vice-President’s participation would give “legitimacy to some tainted journalists who are facing a probe for swindling public money”, according to a BJP leader who doesn’t want to be identified. Moreover, following the controversial decision of Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) — which, of late, has turned into a tool for pushing the CPI(M)’s agenda — to boycott Press Conferences of state BJP leaders for alleged attacks on journalists during Sabarimala protests, the party has reciprocated by asking its functionaries not to take part in panel discussions hosted by TV channels, except the Janam TV. KUWJ, controlled by the ‘CPI(M) Fraction’ in the media, has participated in the recent two-day general strike called by Left trade unions like CITU, and INTUC calling for the ouster of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, much to the chagrin of some non-partisan members of the union. Recently, senior BJP leader K Surendran was humiliated at Kollam Press Club when a photojournalist turned up for Press Conference with a black ribbon tied around his mouth and Leftists celebrated it in social media.
According to documents accessed by Indus Scrolls, the state government had allotted Rs 15 lakh for setting up and development of PK Thampi Memorial Library and Research Centre at Kollam Press Club in 2011-12. So far, the Press Club authorities have not submitted the utilisation certificate to the government, and the allegation is that the office-bearers had swindled the fund. It was found that almost all district Press Clubs in Kerala and KUWJ unit in Delhi had not submitted utilisation certificates despite multiple reminders by the government. The government records show the Press Clubs have swindled about Rs 2.5 crore.
In the wake of widespread complaints, the Public Relations Department of the Kerala government instituted a five-member committee to probe into the irregularities. Interestingly, none of the so-called mainstream media outlets has shown courage to bring out the scam or expose the corrupt journalists before the public, as some of them are directly involved in it. All the tainted journalists are members of the KUWJ. So far they have managed to scuttle all efforts to probe into the irregularities using their political clout.
Of late, taking advantage of the situation, the spin doctors of the Left Front government have been “using these tainted journalists to carry out dirty jobs and misinformation campaign against CPI(M)’s political rivals”, said critics. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar organisations were at the receiving end of their concerted malicious campaigns. Some senior journalists working in leading dailies and television channels were part of this racket.
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