Besieged by exposes, CPM goes after Mathrubhumi, its editor

Its charges against media no longer general; editor gets police protection

Dogged by continuing exposes, the CPI(M), which leads the LDF Government in Kerala, is going beyond blaming the media in general. Even while disowning anonymous street posters vilifying its media tormenters, the party’s leaders are seeking out specific targets.

The latest target is Mathrubhumi, one of Kerala’s largest and oldest newspapers, and its editor K Gopalakrishnan. The newspaper recently exposed how the CPM’s mouthpiece Deshabhimani “extracted” Rs 2 crore from a lottery operator wanted by the courts and owing the Government several crores in evaded taxes.

The party tried to explain it away, first by saying the money was taken as a “bond”, but when it was clear the newspaper couldn’t legally float bonds, the party said it was “an advance against advertisement charges” and then described it as a “deposit.” Finally, CPM national general-secretary Prakash Karat said enough was enough and asked the party to return the money forthwith.

Before this expose, Mathrubhumi had run another one, about K Venugopal, a top manager of Deshabhimani, taking Rs 1 crore from P V Chacko, a financier facing a slew of cases, offering to help him out with the cases. Chacko had complained to Chief Minister V S Achutanandan, and Venugopal was expelled from the party.

It’s another matter that today, a week after the expulsion, Chacko held a press conference saying he hadn’t paid Venugopal any money. He said he’d been silent on the issue and had made no complaint, since his company’s matter was sub judice.

But ever since the second expose, the party — despite some objections from VS — has been proclaiming Mathrubhumi a yellow rag. Its editor Gopalakrishnan is being slandered in anonymous posters, warning that he’d be framed in lewd charges.

On Wednesday, CPM state-secretary Pinarayi Vijayan addressed a public function in Kozhikode, at which he lashed out at Gopalakrishnan and issued veiled threats and warnings. Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan today told the Assembly that police protection has been ordered for Gopalakrishnan, though he wasn’t sure if the editor’s life was under threat.

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There have been other attacks on the paper. Its office in Perambra was burnt down recently after it carried a report on DYFI, the CPM’s youth wing. Opposition members in the Assembly condemned a reported DYFI threat that it would make sure Mathrubhumi journalists “end up on the floor under white sheets.”