Kerala floods: The editorial said the Centre was not reciprocating the political decency shown by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Kerala floods: The editorial said the Centre was not reciprocating the political decency shown by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

THE RSS-linked Malayalam weekly, Kesari, Wednesday pulled down an editorial from its website which criticised the Centre’s handling of the flood crisis, saying the site was hacked.

The editorial said the Centre seemed to be acting with an element of vengeance towards Kerala in the flood relief measures. The website took down the editorial hours after it was put out, and ran a ticker disowning the article.

“Someone has hacked into and published an article in place of the edit dated August 22 on the official Kesari website and the same has nothing to do with the weekly or its editor,” said the ticker attributed to the Editor, Kesari.

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When ieMalayalam.com contacted Kesari’s office, it was told that Editor N R Madhu was on leave as he was down with fever. Calls to his phone went unanswered. In a statement late at night, Madhu said the website was hacked and an editorial “inserted”. He said the editorial was not Kesari’s opinion and a complaint has been lodged with the police and cyber cell. (Read the full edit in Malayalam)

Kerala floods: A screenshot of the editorial that appeared on Kesari Magazine website. It was later removed. Kerala floods: A screenshot of the editorial that appeared on Kesari Magazine website. It was later removed.

Addressed to “friends of the Sangh”, the editorial said it would be cheating “right-wing sympathisers, Kerala and ourselves if we don’t speak up about the neglect being meted out to the state by the movement we believed in so long.”

The Centre on Tuesday released Rs 600 crore, while the state has sought assistance of Rs 2,600 crore. There has been anger in the state over the “insufficient” central assistance.

A step-by-step guide on how you can donate to the Kerala CM’s relief fund

“The Centre has been made aware that a significant number of Sangh followers have been affected by the floods, but the whole of Kerala is being punished for small political gains,” said the editorial.

It even had a word of praise for CM Pinarayi Vijayan, whose party CPM has a history of bloody rivalry with RSS and BJP. It said the Centre didn’t reciprocate the political decency shown by Vijayan when he said “the state government was receiving all cooperation from the Centre”.

“Without Kerala, there is none of us. Along with feelings for Bharat, each ‘Sanghaputran’ also carries feelings for Kerala,” said the editorial, as it criticised the BJP-led central government for giving “political colour” to the crisis.

The editorial was later replaced with an old editorial titled, “Not religion, country is important”. The print version of the weekly, scheduled to be sold on Wednesday morning, hadn’t hit the stands till night.

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