Asking media to get out is no longer a Pinarayi speciality. Guv Khan serves it better

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan during a press conference on Sept 19, 2022. Photo: Rinku Raj Mattancheril/Manorama

Thiruvananthapuram: In a demonstration of unprecedented media intolerance by a Governor, or for that matter any leading politician, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan asked two major media outlets who had gone to meet the Governor in Kochi on Monday at the invitation of the Raj Bhavan to "get out". "I am not able to persuade myself to (talk to) those who masquerade as media. But they actually are members of the cadre. So if anybody is here, my request is to please go away from here," is how the Governor began when the media contingent circled him for a byte.

"I won't talk to anybody from Kairali, if any camera (Kairali's) is here, I will walk away. I hope there is no Kairali here, I hope there is no Media One here," he said. And then, like a school teacher taking attendance, he asked around if anyone from MediaOne was present. When he was told yes, he said: "I don't want to talk to you. Get out."

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He then launched a harangue against the two media outlets saying they were carrying out a false campaign against him. Even when he was reminded that they too were invited by the Raj Bhavan, the Governor was least bothered. "There might have been a mistake. But I have repeatedly declared that I shall not talk to Kairali and Media One. Their campaigns are based on total falsehoods," he said. 

If at all there was some lapse while sending out the invites, the Governor said he would look into it. Clearly, the Governor's anger and bitterness got the better of gubernatorial decorum.

He was asked the most obvious question. "Isn't this intolerance of the highest order?" To this, the Governor offered a strange answer. It looked like journalists and the Pinarayi ministry got hilariously mixed up in his mind. "Any ordinary person can criticise me," the Governor said. "But no one appointed by me can criticise me," he said. This was a reference to the Constitutional ritual of the Governor 'appointing' ministers on the recommendation of the Chief Minister.

Clearly, journalists were not appointed by him. The question was about the journalistic criticism of the Governor to which he had taken serious offence.

In fact, the shrewd politician that he is, Khan used the opportunity to beat his own drum. "When I criticised the Prime Minister, I did it after putting in my papers," he said. This was yet another reminder to the Kerala public that he had once criticised Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for subverting the Shah Bano verdict and walked out of his ministry. But even while mounting the moral high horse, Khan did not bother to tell why journalists were prohibited from criticising him.

During the two press conferences that the Governor had called, he had spoken of his high regard for the media. He even sought to paint a contrast with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who he said, in a bitingly sarcastic tone, had asked the media 'kadakku purathu' (get out).

Now on the scale of intolerance, Arif Mohammed Khan has gone a notch ahead of even Pinaryi Vijayan.

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