Independent journalist Sandhya Ravishankar has leveled serious allegations against Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan, including being a racist and casteist.
In her interview with the Youtube Channel Pesu Tamizha Pesu, she said, “I released a report based on my field research on the 40 constituencies a few months before the May 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly elections. PTR and I had a good relationship until the report was released. I was the first to interview PTR for the Huffington Post, even before he was announced as a candidate for the 2016 election, because he had a solid background as an investment banker and wanted to do something for Tamil Nadu politics. He used to respond to my messages.”
She added, “However, he was dissatisfied with the survey’s findings in the southern region, particularly in the DMK Poongothai Aladi Aruna constituencies, where people said they would vote for the BJP instead of the ADMK and DMK. It all started after that. Then we did another article on the Pollachi incident, where we interviewed a victim who claimed that she was not sexually abused, but that several others were. PTR used a line from the story out of context to claim that we were supporting the Pollachi rapists. PTR even referred to me as an apologist of Pollachi rapists. Despite my efforts to explain, he ignored me and began targeting me. He even blocked me after calling me a scum.”
She further said, “Later, he was regularly targeting Malini Parthasarathy (of The Hindu group). PTR will not talk about what Malini madam says; instead, PTR will target her caste. If you disagree with my viewpoint, you can disregard it by blocking me. Why is he referring to us as cultists? If we look at the pattern of attack by PTR, we can see that he only targets Brahmin women journalists. It started with me, then Malini Parthasarathy, who is constantly targeted by PTR, and recently Chandra Srikanth of Moneycontrol, who is not even a reporter in Tamil Nadu.”
She went on to say, “When Karunanidhi was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, he never abused a journalist, despite that many negative articles were written about him by the journalists.”
She asked sternly, “How many times you know PTR has called Malini Parthasarathy a ‘Cultist’. Can we call him ‘Pannaiyaar’ if he refers to us as ‘cultists’? Will PTR call Malini a cultist if she is born in Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe? If PTR is offended by our viewpoint, he should inform us politely. Who gave him the authority to abuse us? Is this the Dravidian model? As English journalists, Malini, Chandra Srikanth, and I have a better vocabulary than PTR. Do you want us to descend to PTR’s level?”
She further added, “There is a problem with his upbringing, in my opinion. Being in a powerful position, how dare he speak like that? Because of his feudal mindset, he used filthy words against everyone. People say that he studied in the US. Will the US finance minister speak like PTR? PTR is in a respectable position. He must not act like an IT wing troll.”
She ended by saying, “PTR has no right to talk about me. He knows absolutely nothing about me. He is unaware of my family or my difficulties. How dare he say such a thing? I raised the issue with international press organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists. As women in this field, we already face numerous challenges. Nobody paved the way for us. we fought and we have come up. A state finance minister doing this is setting a bad precedent. Only someone with a fascist mentality would do it.”
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