Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Oppn leaders accuse Centre of ‘selectively using’ House channels
NEW DELHI: Several Opposition leaders slammed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday for “selectively using” official Parliament channels to display different sets of visuals on screens inside the chambers and outside, saying that it amounts to “suppression of dissent, and censorship”.
Former information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari alleged that the Lok Sabha Television, which airs proceedings of the House, was “censoring” content in a “concerted effort to squelch dissent in the supreme legislative institution”. “Lok Sabha TV is not the property of a particular political party, it must show proceedings in (an) unbiased manner. The selective focusing of the camera is (the) worst form of censorship,” the Congress MP tweeted.
“Whenever the opposition raises an inconvenient issue, the mic is switched off. This is a concerted effort to squelch dissent in the supreme legislative institution. It is not only censorship, but it subverts both democracy and rule of law,” he added.
Terming the alleged move as “the height of censorship”, he said: “Lok Sabha TV cameras show one thing inside the house on giant TV screens in the Chamber and absolutely another thing on the Lok Sabha TV Channel. As former Union I&B minister, it is preposterous the way a supposedly autonomous institution is behaving.”
Tewari’s claims came days after Trinamool Congress MP Derek
O’Brien first pointed out the alleged difference in visuals from the House on August 3.
Shiromani Akal Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Friday said: “Even the Lok Sabha TV is used for a political purpose... Today they even went to the extent of playing a trick on the MPs where TV screens inside the House showed our protests but what the public sees did not show it.”
HT reached out to a Parliament official but could not get a response till the time of print.
A former LSTV official familiar with the matter, however, said the issue was raised at least twice before, once during the Congress’s tenure with reference to the Telangana Bill and then in 2019 under the BJP government.
Besides, the official added, the channel does not control the cameras in the chambers. “What the MPs see on the screens in the chambers is not what is telecast outside,” the official said. The protests that take place on the floor of the House, said the official, are generally avoided. “Moreover, the proceedings can be stopped from being telecast any moment by the Speaker or the Chair.”