The meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party national president J P Nadda with chairpersons of two media houses – Ch Ramoji Rao of Eenadu group and Vemuri Radha Krishna of Andhra Jyothy on Friday night raised many an eyebrow.
The meeting happened at a time when the BJP top leadership has been maintaining a stoic silence over the arrest and imprisonment of Telugu Desam Party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the alleged skill development corporation scam.
Both Eenadu and Radha Krishna are known for their blatant and open support to the TDP chief and have been running a massive campaign in support of him in the wake of his arrest and mobilising public support for him.
They have also been targeting the YSR Congress party led by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and are often categorised by the ruling party as “yellow media” and treated as part of Naidu’s “Dushta Chatushtayam” (gang of four).
In fact, the Jagan government has been going all out to attack the financial roots of Ramoji Rao by ordering a CID probe into his Margadarsi Chit Fund group and naming him and his daughter-in-law Sailaja Kiran as the prime accused.
There is also a strong belief within the TDP that Jagan had the blessings of the BJP top leadership in the arrest of Naidu in the skill development scam and also the case against Ramoji Rao.
Though none of the TDP leaders openly said this openly, but they are of the view that Jagan would not have taken such a major step without the support of the BJP leadership.
Under these circumstances, the meeting of Nadda with the two yellow media bosses – Ramoji Rao and Radha Krishna, by visiting their houses personally, has become a talking point in the political circles.
Though the BJP leaders say Nadda had met them to seek the support of two big newspapers for the party in the Telangana elections, it is anybody’s guess that Ramoji Rao and Radhakrishna must have definitely raised the issue of Jagan’s alleged harassment of Naidu in various cases.
At the same time, they would have talked about the unusual silence of the BJP in the whole episode and the support extended by the BJP’s alliance partner Jana Sena Party led by power star Pawan Kalyan to the TDP president.
It is not immediately known what the response of Nadda was to Ramoji and RK’s observations and what their conditions are to extend support to the BJP.
In any case, the decision on Naidu is definitely not in the hands of Nadda, but in the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah!