Most of the times, Andhra Jyothy managing director V Radhakrishna’s weekly column on Sunday – titled “Kotha Paluku” – is targeted at attacking YSR Congress party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, if not praising the Chandrababu Naidu government.
This Sunday, too, Radhakrishna stirred a controversy with his strongly-worded column, describing Jagan as a “narcissist” — a person suffering from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a recognised mental health condition.
Making a sarcastic and sharp criticism, RK described Jagan as self-obsessed and detached from reality.
He was referring to Jagan’s allegation that the recent Cyclone Montha that wreaked havoc in coastal Andhra Pradesh as a “man-made disaster” created by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
“Jagan’s claim that the recent Cyclone Motha was Chandrababu Naidu’s creation was immature,” RK said.
He also mocked Jagan for allegedly having Sakshi media print headlines describing him as “the only man who saved people from the cyclone even without being a chief minister.”
RK said such self-congratulatory media behaviour reflects poor political judgment and psychological insecurity.
Giving the devil its due, Naidu has the experience of handling cyclone-related issues in an effective manner. Even critics of Naidu acknowledge that he shows immense administrative drive during natural calamities.
Naidu is known to galvanize the bureaucracy into quick action, unlike Jagan who, during Montha, was reportedly in Bengaluru and returned only after the storm passed.
But there is the other side of the coin. If RK describes Jagan as a narcissist for making wild allegations, one wonders what words he should use to refer to Naidu, who makes tall and exaggerated claims.
“Everybody knows how Naidu tries to take credit for developments like Hyderabad’s IT boom. His oft-repeated claims such as “I built Hyderabad,” “I created Cyberabad,” or “I brought Microsoft to India,” are nothing but an indication of Naidu’s weird psychological status of garnering publicity for everything,” an analyst said.
He questioned whether such inflated self-portraits not equally narcissistic. Political observers note that both leaders have often exhibited self-promotional tendencies bordering on delusion.
“What is worse, certain television channels, known for their sycophancy towards the chief minister, even claimed that Naidu, if has powers, would go to the extent of diverting the route of even super cyclones. Can we call it media narcissism?” he asked.
In the end, all players — political parties, leaders, media houses, and their cadres — seem to suffer from their own forms of collective narcissism, the analyst remarked.
