Andhra Jyothy Gets Notice From Press Council For Publishing Fake Survey In Favour OF TDP

Hyderabad: The Press Council of Indian (PCI) has issued a Show Cause notice to Andhra Jyothy a Telugu Vernacular paper. The paper had published a bogus survey which reported that the Telugu Desam Party was going to win the elections in 2019 and come to power .

The PCI directed the Management of the paper to file a written reply within 15 days time upon receipt of the notice ,about the fake news published in its paper.

PCI Secretary Anupama Bhatnagar sent the notice to the Editors of Andhra Jyothy on Wednesday. The Show Cause notice was sent in response to the several petitions filed with the PCI, which reported that the survey was a fake one. The Press Council said that if the Andhra Jyothy management does not respond within the stipulated time, the matter would be submitted to the Press Council Enquiry Committee for further action.

The bogus survey reported that the TDP would win anywhere between 126 to 135MLA seats and 18-22 MP seats. The survey was published in the April 2 Andhra Jyothy edition.

Meanwhile Lokneethi-CSDS released a statement that they had not conducted any such survey in Andhra Pradesh and had no connection with this fake report. They also warned that legal action would be taken against those who had misused the organisation's name for creating this fake survey. Several petitions complaining about the fake survey were submitted to the PCI and Election Commission.

Senior Journalist and former member of the PCI, K Amarnath said that he had submitted a complaint to the PCI Chairman Justice CK Prasad and the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora. He expressed doubts that this survey was part of the paid media. The clippings of the Andhra Jyothy Telugu report, the English translation , Lokneethi-CSDS complaint about the fake report were attached and submitted to the PCI. Amarnath Reddy in his complaint mentioned that these kind of fake reports would mislead the public and impact the voting suffrage and requested that stringent action be taken against Andhra Jyothy paper for publishing this fake report.