Ramoji Rao – owner of largest circulated Telugu daily, one of the top media barons in India is undisputable kingmaker of Telugu politics. Even at 80+ years, all political leaders vying for his attention. Recent meeting of Jagan with Ramoji, seeking his blessings once again displayed to the people of Telugu states, Ramoji’s hold over politics in Telugu states.
Jagan met him twice despite all the name calling he did. Sakshi wrote very controversial things about Ramoji’s son, late Suman. Sakshi people still say that the day they published Suman and Prabhakar’s interview is still the highest circulation day for Sakshi till date. That interview was so shocking that in some of the small towns, xerox copies of that interview were sold as sakshi paper copies were all over. Even the cartoons in Sakshi about Ramoji were in bad taste and not even respecting his age. Of course one may argue that every line published in sakshi may not come for Jagan’s approval. But as these kind of articles and cartoons published several times, one can safely assume Jagan’s consent for these things. Moreover, Jagan told multiple times to his colleagues that his dream is to see Ramoji in jail.
In spite of all this grandstanding, Jagan is now seeking blessings of Ramoji. Same story with KCR. He told, once Telangana is formed Film city will be ploughed etc. But now it seems, Eenadu has become KCR’s favorite paper. Ramoji is one of the very few media barons with direct phone line to Modi. Considering all this Ramoji is THE real Raja guruvu of Telugu politics. Interestingly, it is the Sakshi paper that popularized the tag “Raja guruvu” to Ramoji, albeit sarcastically.
