New media advisor to CM Yediyurappa appointed

Bengaluru: The retired Director of Department of Information and Public relations of Karnataka, Bhrungeesh N on Wednesday was appointed Media Advisor to the Chief Minister. This, after Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa's media advisor Mahadeva Prakash resigned on Sunday making it the second such high profile exit from his media within a month. Bhrungeesh has a record of serving as media secretary to Yediyurappa during his first tenure as CM between 2008-11. He also has served under 10 CMs of Karnataka under various roles in the Chief Minister Office. He has over 30 years of experience in the Information Department. Prior to this, he was the press secretary to two Chief Ministers – S.M. Krishna and N Dharam Singh.

According to the reports from the Chief Minister office, a previous advisor Mahadeva Prakash's approach to the media management did not go down well with Yediyurappa. Senior journalist MB Maramkal was sacked from the post of chief minister's political advisor.

It all started during the recent controversy over alleged illegal gains made by one of CM's family members through kickbacks from a government contractor. The issue caused embarrassment to Yediyurappa after a private Kannada television channel ran a series of sting operations on a member of the CM's family. Later one BJP worker C Nagaraja Gowda had obtained a temporary injunction from a Bengaluru court prohibiting reporting on the matter. In connection with the same incident, Vijayendra, son of CM Yediyurappa filed a defamation case against the channel heads.