The Congress on Thursday slammed the government for the purported report by a Group of Ministers (GoM) to “neutralise” negative narrative against the Narendra Modi government and “spin” a positive one.
At a press conference, party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate alleged that the government’s recent regulations for digital media and OTT platforms had their origin in such a report to “control free views and spin the narrative in the government’s favour.”
Ms. Shrinate cited the latest report of Freedom House, a U.S.-based NGO, to argue that the Modi government had not just encroached on press freedom but freedom itself.
“... It [the GoM report] categorically mentions that there has to be a strategy to neutralise people who are writing against the government. It very categorically also seems to suggest that some of the suggestions made in this report have actually been turned into law. The IT rules 2021 announced a few days back by Ravi Shankar Prasad Ji and Prakash Javadekar Ji seem to have taken a lot of these suggestions on board,” the Congress spokesperson said.
“So, this does raise question: will Parliament make laws or will laws be made by ministers sitting in the drawing rooms with consultations and under guidance of pliant media persons ever willing to serve the Modi government?” asked Ms. Shrinate.
She said the ministers should resign on moral grounds since their strategy to spin a positive narrative amounted to a “blatant attack on the free press.”
Asking the government to explain the purpose of setting up a GoM, she said, “We were slipping constantly in freedom of press index ... a U.S. NGO funded by the U.S. government today has raised questions on free India. We are apparently in a partially free category.”
She said the government should be ‘ashamed’ for landing the country in this state after 73 years of Independence.
