Congress hits out at DD for doctored script

The Congress has taken strong objection to the national broadcaster Doordarshan reportedly censoring some words in the speech of its spokesperson Sachin Sawant, keeping the party in the dark. It has now refused to record its voter awareness speech for the upcoming assembly election.

The party claims the government is trying to silence the voice of the opposition with its action.

The public broadcaster is doing so under pressure from the BJP-led government, Sawant said. On Doordarshan, parties are allotted time slots for election campaigning and it cannot stop people from criticising the government.

"Under pressure from the government, Doordarshan is trying to silence the voice of opposition parties. Changes have been made in the voter awareness script of the Congress party without its knowledge," Sawant said in his statement. "This incident is infuriating and also takes away the constitutional right to oppose the government," he said.

For a programme on Doordarshan, the Congress's script had a line as follows: "Gelya paach varshaat, mukhya mantri Devendra Fadnavis yaani thaapa maarnyashivai aani khote bolnyashivai kaahi kele naahi (In the last five years, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has done nothing other than lying)".

These words were changed by DD's scrutiny committee, he alleged, and, by doing so, the opposition's right to give its opinion was taken away.

Condemning the manner in which the DD changed the document, Sawant said the Congress will not record its script till Doordarshan explains why those words (critical of Fadnavis) were removed. He demanded that Doordarshan give it in writing, if it feels "only the chief minister speaks the truth".