News Special Reports Tamil Nadu

TNM Founder Dhanya Rajendran’s Old Posts On Karunanidhi Come Back To Haunt Her As DMK Members Are Furious Over Chennai Floods Reportage, TRB Rajaa’s Cryptic Response To Pudhupettai Meme Raises Eyebrows

December 11, 2023
The Commune

Dhanya Rajendran, founder of The News Minute (TNM) was seen “cozying up” on social media platform X thanking DMK’s IT Wing head TRB Rajaa for “standing with them” as allegations of TNM journalists having received bribes in 2016. 

Photos of an alleged diary entry of a mining baron Shekhar Reddy were circulating on X and it was debunked by Shabbir Ahmed of The News Minute. This comes at a time when TNM has been actively reporting on the failures of the DMK government in handling the floods and the impact of Cyclone Michaung.

Following this, DMK supporters started digging out old tweets of Dhanya Rajendran where she had posted derogatorily about former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and the late DMK patriarch, Karunanidhi. 

As she shared an article from The Wire titled, “(At Least) Three Critical Flaws in the Ethics Committee Report on Mahua Moitra”, several DMK supporters called out her duplicity when it came to ethics. 

One supporter wrote, “Lol same @dhanyarajendran who was preaching DMK cadre on ethics, integrity, abuse, etc? This is her abusing an octogenarian leader and one of the tallest leaders in Tamilnadu and India. Now she expects the cadre of the party who are beneficiaries of Kaalingnars social/people welfare schemes to garland her with Roses for the agenda-driven journalism she and her Samsung friends carry out!  If Samsung phone beneficiaries who masquerade as journalists have so much loyalty to their masters, we will also showcase our loyalty to our leaders by exposing the agenda of these Samsung. Now go complain to our ministers you scam of a journalist…”

Here are some of her old tweets where she spoke about Karunanidhi making fun of his multiple marriages and plentiful children most often.

 

As the allegations of bribe started resurfaeing, it seemed as if TRB Rajaa was offering great support for Dhanya Rajendran and her team, however, the situation took a turn as he seemingly joined in on the amusement that DMK supporters were having at Dhanya and TNM’s expense.

Here is what TRB Rajaa wrote when a DMK supporter posted about the situation.

“Party members are very dignified, they will not slander the journalists. Only those who want to bring a bad name to the party must have done it.”. Rajaa replied to this post saying,“I can’t even! Am I the scapegoat today? Carry on, may the festival be successful”

This post seems to indicate that Rajaa had posted that “support” tweet just for the namesake. Some DMK supporters questioned TRB Rajaa as to why he was supporting abusers of their leader, Karunanidhi.

 

 

A video of a debate on Puthiya Thalaimurai surfaced amidst this where the panel included political commentator Savukku Shankar, Dhanya Rajendran, and present DMK State Deputy Secretary IT Wing Madurai S Bala. In the video, Bala is seen saying, “Making posts against Dhanya, that too vulgar ones are totally wrong. There is no doubt about it. But Dhanya is a journalist. She has made tweets about Kalaignar. Those tweets do not fall anywhere close to the standards one has for journalists. They were very vulgar.”

Bala was referring to this tweet and asked her, “Is this right? Would you have done this for Jayalalithaa or Modi?”

To this, Dhanya replies by saying, “I made those posts several years ago. I have already apologised for it. There is nothing vulgar about it. I have made several tweets against Modi and Jayalalithaa. If you want you can take a look. This is not right. I criticise BJP and Congress daily. So tomorrow will you go dig into someone’s words spoken in college or school days? Will you dig into their whole history and say you deserve this? Is that right?”

Dhanya states that she apologised for the tweets she made and had spoken about it to Stalin long back. 

 

Whether or not TNM continues to peddle propaganda just like the ruling DMK wants, they will be hounded for their past every now and then. 

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