By Mohammed Shafeeq, IANS,
Hyderabad: ABN Telugu news channel, which exposed the sex scandal allegedly involving Andhra Pradesh Governor N.D. Tiwari, has termed his resignation as a “victory of the moral values”.
“It is the victory of moral values. It shows how the moral values are still dear to the people,” said V. Radhakrishna, managing director of Andhra Jyothi, the Telugu daily which owns the channel.
Radhakrishna told IANS that he decided to go ahead with the airing of the tapes the moment he was convinced of their veracity. He said he was not afraid of the consequences though the scandal involved a constitutional head.
“The word fear is not in my dictionary. If these tapes were concocted or fabricated he would not have resigned. He would have sued me for airing them,” said Radhakrishna.
He claimed that it was the first instance of its kind in India when a state governor had to resign over a sex scandal.
The channel Friday showed pictures of an elderly man purported to be Tiwari, 86, with three young women in bed in the Raj Bhavan.
The channel, launched recently, quoted Radhika, a woman from Uttarakhand, as saying that she sent the young women to the Raj Bhavan on Tiwari’s request through his aide.
She claimed that she was “exposing” the governor as he failed to keep his word to provide her an iron ore mining licence in Andhra Pradesh.
The Raj Bhavan, however, got a stay from the high court on the telecast of the story Friday.
A statement from the governor’s office termed the story “malicious” and alleged that tapes were “fabricated”.
Radhakrishna said the stay was only on airing the story and it became infructous with the resignation of Tiwari.
“A constitutional head should not have done such an idiotic thing. Using Raj Bhavan for such activities is highly objectionable and it showed the degeneration of moral values among politicians,” he said.
“If persons holding such constitutional posts indulge in these activities people will lose faith in the constitution and the democracy.”