On Monday, continuing the now-hallowed tradition of tagging people ‘anti-nationals’ who are supposed to leave the country, Kerala BJP secretary AN Radhakrishnan had added one more name to the list, that of director Kamal.
Three-time national award winner and Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, Kamal earned the BJP's ire for calling PM Modi a 'man-eater'.
While all media dutifully reported the news, News 18 went a step ahead and refused to hold a debate on the same. The news channel began its Tuesday episode of Prime Debate -aired daily at 9 pm- by mentioning about the incident.
The anchor then coolly chose to ignore the same, saying that the BJP's boring routine of asking all and sundry to leave the country seemed to be a desperate bid to hog media attention.
He immediately switched over to a more newsworthy topic on who exactly could be held responsible for Kerala student Jishnu’s suicide.
To quote anchor Saneesh:
“Our show discusses daily matters of prime political and social importance that took place in the state. One of the topics before us is AN Radhakrishnan’s ‘hate’ statement asking director Kamal to leave the country.
This is not the first time that he has made such a statement in his ‘responsible’ capacity as the state general secretary of a party which is in power at the Centre. We understand that he just wishes to incite communal hatred and threaten individuals only to seek the media’s attention.
This is mere political bait to make it a topic of debate in the media. Realising this, our editorial team at News 18 has decided to ignore such hateful tirades with the contempt it deserves. We now move on to….”