War of words over central assistance to Tamil Nadu: Featuring BJP, TOI and Malini on Twitter

This is a story in several acts.

The first involves a senior BJP leader versus the Times of India; the second is a Hindu staffer versus TOI and the BJP leader; and the third is The Hindu Group's chairperson versus the Hindu staffer.

Buckle in.

On December 30, a high-level committee under home minister Amit Shah approved over Rs 3,000 crore of additional central assistance to six states "which were affected by floods, landslides and cyclones during 2021". These funds were allocated under the National Disaster Response Force.

The states are Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

On January 2, the Times of India pointed out that Tamil Nadu had not figured in the list despite chief minister MK Stalin "sending several memoranda seeking assistance" after the floods in the state. The piece was filed by TOI's senior assistant editor Julie Mariappan.

Enter K Annamalai, the state president of the BJP in Tamil Nadu. He accused Mariappan of "perennial bias towards BJP Tamil Nadu" that "manifested" as a "half-baked" and "agenda-driven" report in the newspaper.

His proof of this bias was to ignore the fact that the news report was on the December 31 announcement, and instead point out that Tamil Nadu had received funds before.

Annamalai's targeting of Mariappan was criticised by several journalists. When journalist Shabbir Ahmed called out Annamalai's "intimidation tactics", the BJP president accused Ahmed too of a "visceral hatred for our Hon PM & BJP TN".

TOI Chennai's resident editor Arun Ram then tweeted about how the report had "received much choreographed criticism" from the BJP Tamil Nadu.

Confused yet? There's more.

The Times of India's Chennai edition today carried two pieces on this "row": the first by DMK spokesperson Manuraj Shunmugasundaram and the second by Annamalai.

Annamalai also posted about his piece on Twitter.

Which is when RK Radhakrishnan, associate editor of Frontline, which is part of The Hindu Group, insinuated that the piece had come out after Annamalai "singled out a reporter...for her religion".

"Annamalai has scored an unqualified victory," tweeted Radhakrishnan.

When a Twitter user complained that Radhakrishnan was spreading "fake news", The Hindu Group Publishing's chairperson (also former editor of the newspaper) Malini Parthasarathy chastised Radhakrishnan for his "unwarranted" and "gratuitous" comment, saying he had "no business to write this comment against Shri Annamalai K or TOI Chennai".