The Press Council of India has issued a show cause notice [pdf] to the Bengal based ultra-left wing rag Telegraph for comparing President of India Ramnath Kovind with the deadly global pandemic COVID-19.

According to a press release issued on Tuesday, the Press Council of India took suo motu cognizance of the headline of the newspaper on March 17, 2020, projecting the President of India as Coronavirus in what it claimed as a ‘satirical’ manner. A show-cause notice has been issued to the ultra-left Telegraph for the violation of journalistic conduct.

Press Council of India issues show cause notice to The Telegraph over the headline comparing President Kovind to virus

Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad, the Chairman of the media-watchdog Press Council of India, took cognizance of the issue and sent notice the Editor of the Telegraph for violating norms of Journalistic conduct.

The council stated that the satirical comments, ridiculing and denigrating the first citizen of the country was uncalled for and termed it as beyond the call of the fair journalistic comment.

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On Tuesday, Bengal-based media house The Telegraph was called out by netizens for a headline that insulted Dalit community as it compared the President of India, Ramnath Kovind, who is a Dalit leader himself, to ‘Covid19’. The meltdown came after President Kovind nominated ex-CJI Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya Sabha.

“Kovind, not Covid, did it”, the headline read.COVID-19 is a pandemic, a coronavirus disease which has impacted lakhs of people globally as of this moment. In its bid to make a wordplay on President’s name by comparing it to the deadly virus, The Telegraph just hit a new low even by its own standards.