Tharoor joins Kerala government to spread lies over flood bills

Indian media is well known for sensationalizing issues. To attract more eyeballs, media organizations exaggerate everything and make sensational headlines. The print medium appears relatively promising but few websites and almost all the television channels are more of Ekta Kapoor serials than being platforms for sensible coverage and informative reporting. The left-liberal media establishment collaborates with the opposition, mainly Congress which has nurtured and nourished it since the days of state monopoly over media and spreads ruckus. The state monopoly over media ended in last the few decades but the subservience of left-liberal media to Congress remains the same. The people in the media still pursue fear and rumor-mongering on the direction of their political masters.

Recently, the Communist government in Kerala and Shashi Tharoor tried to malign the image of central government and said that the central government is asking for money from Kerala government for airlifting operations conducted during floods in the state. NDTV, the leader of left-liberal media establishment reported the issue prominently. The news organization tried to spin the story to give it the shape of a political vendetta carried out by the central government against Kerala government. The complete facts regarding the development were also not reported. As per the accounting rules, it very clear that the ‘charges of the assistance provided by the Armed Forces during such calamities should be borne by the state government’. The 33 crore bill to be paid by Kerala government to Controller of Defense Accounts was sent by the Air Headquarters which is an independent unit under the Government of India.

However, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan tried to reap political advantage out of these developments and accused the central government of all this. “This bill should be seen as been sent by the central government. We in the recent past have also written to central government, stating that we were expecting the ration including the extra quota of rice and kerosene as free of charge, given as assistance during the floods. But we’ve not received any response to even that,” Vijayan told media. “The estimated loss in the state has been around Rs. 31,000 crore. We received Rs. 600 crore from the Centre as emergency fund. And now we have to pay these bills from that money and will be left with even lesser amount. We shouldn’t be disappointed. The truth is that we have got much less than what we should have received as financial assistance from the Centre. Let’s hope that they will calculate all this and give us equivalent amount as assistance,” he added. The claims made by Vijayan are half-lies as the central government provided every possible relief at the time of floods in Kerala and for which independent observers praised the Modi government.

It was not only the Communist party which tried to reap political benefits and criticize the central government for the development but senior Congress leader, Shashi Tharoor also jumped into the issue and did the same. “The Central Govt has given ₹600cr towards damages of ₹31000cr incurred by Kerala, & now wants ₹33cr of it back. Hope they don’t ask the flood-hit state to pay for @PMOIndia ‘s aerial inspection flight as well!” tweeted Tharoor with web link of NDTV story attached. Tharoor has almost 7 million followers on Twitter and he did not hesitate in spreading this ‘utterly biased’ report among the followers.

The disdain of left-liberal media towards the Modi government is very much visible from the overall reporting on this issue. The ideologically polarized anchors and journalists, particularly, in English media report and spread half-truths to malign the image of a particular party and government. The leaders with huge social media following like Shashi Tharoor assist these media establishments in their cause. Indian media exaggerates every issue and the TV shows lack mature content. The Prime Time shows on TV give a sense that the world will fall apart on just the other day.