Tamil Nadu: Annamalai Says DMK ‘Sacrificing’ State Owned Arasu Cable TV To Favour Family Owned Sumangali Cable TV

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K Annamalai alleged that the recent outage of the state owned Arasu Cable TV was at the behest of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK).

Annamalai alleged that the outage, during which television screens went blank for two days, was to favour Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), which is owned by the Maran brothers who are relatives of former chief minister M Karunanidhi.

Arasu Cable TV was started by the state government to help poor people with a low-cost option to watch television. The present plan costs Rs 190 per month.

The DMK has been accused of blockading competition in the media space for a long time.

Between 2006 and 2011, there was a fierce clash between the private company Hathway and SCV. The clash escalated to such a level, that the police had to call SCV distributors to the police station to warn them not to cut cables of Hathway.

Hathway later left the state in 2009 saying that it was unprofitable to do business in Tamil Nadu.

Annamalai said that the latest episode is something similar. He added that while the DMK had earlier forced out a private company (Hathway), it was now trying to ‘sacrifice’ the state owned Arasu Cable TV to further its monopoly in the state.

He said that the BJP would steadfastly oppose this move of the DMK to profit at the expense of the poor.

Former chief minister O Panneerselvam, from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), alleged that the DMK government had not paid Mantra Balaji, the company that had designed the software and supplied the set top boxes.

The government said that the recent outage was a case of sabotage as the company had illegally deactivated the set-top boxes by hacking into them.

Regarding the issue of payment, the government said that allegations made by Panneerselvam were baseless as the government had cleared all dues.

It said that technical experts have been engaged to rectify the problem and legal action would be taken against the company. A manager of the company has been arrested.