“Because politics is fuelled by raw emotion and both print and electronic media thrive on such intensity, the page and the screen have become the definitive battlefields for political combat”
Is the media in Telangana, across both print and electronic platforms, increasingly becoming a strategic battlefield for political vendettas?
Recent events suggest a definitive “BIG YES.” The fourth estate has transitioned from a neutral observer to an active participant in the internecine warfare currently fracturing the ruling Congress party.
The gravity of the situation was laid bare on January 18, 2026, when Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy issued a public caution to media houses, warning them against "dragging Ministers into their rivalry."
His statement alluded to a disturbing trend where media outlets, often backed by competing business and political interests, act as proxies to target specific members of his Cabinet.
The catalyst for this friction is a high-stakes controversy involving Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL). At the heart of the dispute is the Naini coal block in Odisha, a project estimated at ₹1,200 crore annually over a 25-year tenure.
A local newspaper report alleged a conspiracy between Deputy CM and NTV owner Narendra Chowdhary. The report claimed that tender conditions were manipulated to favor a company linked to Chowdhary’s family, effectively stifling competition.
The narrative took a sensational turn when these allegations were linked to the arrest of NTV journalists. These reporters had previously aired a "gossip-style" story alleging an illicit relationship between a senior Minister, widely identified as Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, and a woman IAS officer.
The underlying theory suggests a retaliatory strike: the Minister’s brother, also a contractor, reportedly demanded an open bidding process for the SCCL project, threatening the alleged Vikramarka-Chowdhary plan. In response, it is claimed that defamatory content was "planted" to sideline the Minister and his family from the contract process.
In a hasty attempt at damage control, the Deputy CM denied all wrongdoing and ordered the cancellation of the current tender. However, his defense raised more questions, with no answers on why was the tender cancelled so abruptly if established procedures were followed in the first place.
In his hasty bid for damage control, the deputy CM enacted a victim alleging the news report has targeted a loyal, old-guard Congressman, like him subtly framing the attack as a conspiracy by "outsiders" who have recently joined the party, suggesting the fever pitch the power games reached between the Old guards and the new entrants in the Congress party.
It is highly unlikely that media houses traditionally close to the ruling establishment would publish such explosive claims without some level of high-level tacit approval.
This suggests that the Telangana media has become the primary theatre for a power struggle that has reached its zenith.
By framing the conflict as a clash between the Congress traditionalists and lateral entrants, the ruling party has inadvertently revealed its deepest fissures.
In this environment, journalism has become a weapon for character assassination and high-stakes financial leverage, proving that in Telangana's political landscape, the headline is often the first strike in a larger war.
