The internal wrangle in the director board of the Mathrubhumi daily, the centenary celebration of which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday morning came out in the open during the inaugural ceremony itself.
M V Shreyams Kumar, the ingenious son of late M P Veerendra Kumar, former managing director, while welcoming the Prime Minister to the function, failed in mention the name of board chairman P V Chandran, who is also the managing editor of the newspaper. This resulted in Prime Minister Modi not mentioning the name of Chandran, much to the latter’s anguish.
But Chandran rose to the occasion and while delivering the vote of thanks, praised Prime Minister Modi as the leader of not only India but also the entire world.
Shreyams Kumar tried to black out from his speech the role played by late M J Krishnamohan, former managing director of the paper who was the main brain behind modernizing the Mathrubhumi. The special supplements issued by the newspaper in connection with the centenary celebrations too were silent about Krishnamohan except for a passing mention.
During his tenure as managing director, name of Krishnamohan, a multifaceted personality, was synonymous with that of the newspaper. He had an untimely death while preoccupied with the launching of the Thiruvananthapuram edition of the newspaper.
The general belief is that Shreyamskumar would not have communicated to the Prime Minister about the role of Krishnamohan in the history of the Mathrubhumi. The Prime Minister was all praise for the role played by the Mathrubhumi in preserving democracy. He said it was because of the mission undertaken by leaders lile Tilak, Gokhale, Shyamlal Krishna and K P Kesava Menon (founder editor of Mathrubhumi), the freedom agitation could be sustained. “We who were born in the pre-independence era are involved in building a new India. AatmaNirbhar Bharat and high speed connectivity are the new missions undertaken by us to strengthen India,” said Modi. But the Mathrubhumi TV channel, dominated by Marxists and Islamists, totally ignored this part of the speech. The channel scrolled that Prime Minister Modi appreciated Mathrubhumi for its endeavors.
Shreyams Kumar made use of the opportunity to eulogize his late father M P Veerendrakumar, whom he portrayed as the person who brought in revolutionized the daily. But Chandran had also played an equal, if not more, role in developing the newspaper and group publications to their present level. Employees of the Mathrubhumi still hate Veerendrakumar for his policy of revenge and vendetta unleashed against journalists. Many reporters were transferred to Nagaland, Kashmir and Assam, where the Mathrubhumi did not have any presence.
A number of disgusted reporters left the company because of his cruel victimization policy.
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