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Jaya TV, Sun TV fight battles of their political leaders

N Sathiya Moorthy in Chennai

The Dharampuri incident, in which three university students were burnt to death on February 2 by an angry mob comprising mostly All India Anna DMK workers protesting against their leader's conviction in a corruption case, has ranged two television channels - Sun TV and Jaya TV - against each other.

For most of Sunday, Jaya TV, the Tamil channel owned by the AIADMK member of Parliament, T T V Dinakaran, who is also a nephew of party supremo Jayalalitha's live-in confidante Sasikala Natarajan, had the former chief minister spewing venom at Sun TV.

She charged that the channel had prior intimation of the Dharamapuri incident thus suggesting that the burning of the university bus was orchestrated by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazgham. Sun TV, as is widely known, is owned by Kalanidhi Maran, a grand-nephew of DMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

Jayalalitha first made the charge when she met newsmen after calling on Governor Justice Fatima Beevi on Saturday. She submitted a memorandum to the governor demanding a CBI inquiry into the 'Dharmapuri incident'.

Her subsequent appearance on Jaya TV where she portrayed Sun TV as a media arm of the ruling party, followed Sun TV's decision to sue her for Rs 5 crore.

This is not the first time that either Jaya TV or Sun TV have tried to use their reach to score points for their political masters. Through Jaya TV, whose offices are located in a building adjacent to Jayalalitha's Poes Garden residence in Madras, the former chief minister has often tried to target her opponents.

The two television channels have played the political game for too long now for anybody to take them at their face value.

For instance, Jaya TV played down Jayalalitha's conviction in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case, despite it being the only instance of a former chief minister being sentenced under the amended Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988. For the channel's afternoon bulletin, aired just two hours after the court verdict, US President Bill Clinton's pending Indian visit was more important.

The court verdict formed the last of the three headlines that the bulletin carried that day, but it led with her decision to challenge the same.

A couple of weeks prior to the 'Pleasant Stay Hotel case' verdict, Sun TV led its afternoon news bulletin, with a court sentencing former AIADMK legislator Malliga in a corruption case. That very morning Justice S Thangaraj of the Madras High Court had discharged Jayalalitha in the more famous 'Tansi land deal case', but to Sun TV, it was worth only a second lead.

The Tamil Maanila Congress president G K Moopanar was a near non-entity for Jaya TV as long as he was critical of Jayalalitha, but he got fine spots on the channel's news bulletins when he was being wooed into an alliance with the AIADMK.

When R Chokkar, the TMC chief whip in the state assembly, quit his MLA's post following the party decision to support the AIADMK in the three assembly by-elections, Sun TV went to town with an interview with him.

Jayalalitha's frustration as far as the 'Dharmapuri incidents' goes is understandable. She had hoped to be on the comeback trail, particularly after the TMC joined her camp, and this had re-energised her cadres. This was in sharp contrast to the mood in the DMK camp, where workers are reportedly unhappy with the indifferent attitude of their government to the people's needs. A return to power would have helped Jayalalitha end her court travails.

But now, it seems, she may have to start from scratch all over again.

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