Central India journos condemn attacks on Governor Banwarilal Purohit

Chennai: Journalists of Central India have condemned the attacks on Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit who they insisted is a “man of principles and impeccable integrity”.

The Maharashtra Union of Working Journalists (MUWJ) and the Nagpur Union of Working Journalists (NUWJ) in a joint statement have “strongly deprecated the deplorable attempt by some vested interests to malign the spotlessly clean image of Shri Banwarilal Purohit by hurling baseless, malicious, mischievous and slanderous allegations”.

They said they knew Purohit, popularly known as Babuji, for several decades “as diligent public representative, as Managing Editor of The Hitavada, the oldest and largest circulated English daily of Central India since last one century, as able administrator of educational institutions and an affable public personality”. He is known for Spartan personal life and above board public life.

“He is fatherly figure for most media persons in Central India and has always stood against corruption, injustice and openly supported media persons in their fight against any attempt to muzzle their voice of dissent”, the journalists’s unions said.

They said they were taken aback by the “audacious attempt to portray him in poor light by completely twisting the narrative and strongly condemn such an attempt in no uncertain terms”. The manner in which a section of the media tried to project the episode at Raj Bhavan, “was utterly in poor taste and smacked of sinister design to indulge in a smear campaign against a high constitutional functionary with clean image throughout his public life”, the media unions said.

They said Hitavada, which Governor Purohit owned, employs a large number of women journalists—“perhaps the largest number of women journalists anywhere in Central India”—and “under his towering personality all the institutions run by him are considered as law-abiding, rule-enforcing and safest possible places of employment”, they said.