All ye people, bemoaning the rise of Right-wing on social media. Rejoice. The Left seems to have taken a cue or two and upped its game when it comes to revenge rating. At least those who come from God’s Own Country. Their target? Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV.

Yesterday, the channel’s official Facebook page witnessed a massive dip in ratings and reviews within a span of a few hours. If Malayalee media is anything to go by, this was the handiwork of miffed Mallus.

According to this report by Madhyamam, the reason for the concerted attack is the channel’s editorial stance on the political violence in Kerala and its reporting on the Sunanda Pushkar case.

Republic TV over the past week launched a scathing attack on the governing Left party in Kerala after the gruesome murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker, albeit in Goswami’s classic partisan style. He kicked off his prime-time debate with the question: “…the nation wants to know who is behind these political murders and can the Left be tolerant to the merciless butchery of RSS workers in the state of Kerala?” The reality of the political violence, as reports like this and this suggest, is indeed more complex than what Goswami and co would have you believe. Apropos Tharoor, well, it’s safe to say that the kangaroo court proceedings that pass off as reportage on Republic TV would like to see him behind bars.

Back to the ratings attack, it seems to have begun on August 2. On July 30, according to a cached version of Republic’s review page, the channel was rated at 4.7 stars.

The next cache that’s available on google shows a dip in rating and a hike in the number of people who reviewed the page. On August 6, their rating decreased to 4.4 stars, while the number of people who gave it a one star rating increased from 93 to 473.

By yesterday evening, the channel’s rating had gone down from 4.4 to 2.2 stars. Curiously, the page disabled the ratings and review options yesterday after it registered over 18,000 one star rating to allow it back again within a few hours. The reviews, mostly by Malayalees, called out the channel for its lack of “objectivity” and its “sensational” style of journalism. Some reviews also accused it of being a “paid BJP channel”.

The attack wasn’t limited to the Facebook page alone. The mobile application on Android playstore, also called ‘Republic TV’ but is not an official app of the channel, was also downgraded by users to a 2.2 star rating. Perhaps, the Malayalees thought why let go of an opportunity to slam Republic TV and looks like we fell hook, line and sinker for it too. Nonetheless, the abuses are meant only for Goswami and his channel. The reviews posted accused the channel for being the mouthpiece of the BJP and the RSS, very few rated the app based on its “user-friendliness”.

Some of the negative reviews come with the comments like, “exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies”. Others are from workers or supporters of the Indian National Congress and Left parties. Quite a few reviewers have ‘Kerala No 1’ written on their profile pictures. As of today, that app has been taken off Android store.

Republic TV’s ratings when we last checked was 2.6 stars. We hope things get more exciting with Goswami supporters countering the attack with 5 stars. The battle may have just begun.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @shrutimenon10.

Update: This article has been updated to reflect that the comments on the Android app which has been taken down was not on Republic TV’s official mobile app. According to employees of the channel, the official app is yet to be launched.