HYDERABAD: Acting on a complaint lodged by Nizamabad MP D Arvind, the Committee of Privileges and Conduct of Lok Sabha has issued notices to ‘Namaste Telangana’ and ‘Telangana Today’, giving them 72 hours to respond to the allegation that they misinterpreted the speech by Prime Minister Narendra Modi speech in the Rajya Sabha on February 8 and published misleading reports.
It may be recalled that Modi, in his address, had made statements about the way the AP Reorganisation Act was passed by Parliament in 2014. Arvind met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and complained that the newspapers acted against the privileges and had portrayed the Prime Minister in a bad light by misinterpreting his statement. After reviewing the complaint, the Committee served notices to the newspaper management.
Meanwhile, after reports of detractors in the BJP’s Telangana unit holding secret meetings were published on Tuesday, the party’s core committee leaders, led by Bandi Sanjay Kumar met Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Prahlad Joshi in New Delhi on Wednesday, requesting him to initiate action against ‘politically-motivated’ media houses spreading ‘misinformation’ among the people.
The BJP leaders complained that a section of the media, run by the family of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, was spewing venom on BJP leaders, including Modi.
“To cover up his failures and to divert the attention from the prevailing discontent among the people against KCR rule, Namaste Telangana, T-News, and Telangana Today are spreading false information. They have been siphoning hundreds of crores of public money for advertisements through the State government for all the misleading news they publish or broadcast,” claimed Sanjay.BJP State in-charge Tarun Chugh also dismissed the news reports, saying that the party was united and there was no indiscipline.
He also accused the State government of perpetrating attacks on BJP workers.