‘Unfortunate’: INDIA bloc’s decision to shun 14 news anchors draws sharp criticism

At a time when the whole world is observing International Day of Democracy on Friday, the Opposition’s INDIA bloc has announced the boycott of 14 anchors hailing from eight mainstream news channels.

The decision to shun certain news anchors was taken at the first meeting of the coordination committee of the India National Democratic Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc in New Delhi.

The list, shared by several member parties of INDIA coalition, contains the names of Republic Network’s Arnab Goswami, Aaj Tak’s Sudhir Chaudhary, News18 Hindi’s Amish Devgan, Times Now’s Navika Kumar, India Today Group’s Gaurav Sawant among 14 news anchors.

Hitting back at the Opposition for the move, BJP said the emergency-era mindset was still alive among these parties.

Speaking on the issue, BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi said, “As per the survey by India Today some days back, Narendra Modi is going to be the Prime Minister of India again with BJP winning more than 306 seats in the upcoming General Election. However, the Opposition’s INDIA bloc knows their situation very well. If their spokespersons can’t give answers to the questions of the anchors, how can they boycott them? I think it’s their frustration.”

Sharing his views on the issue, senior journalist Prasanna Mohanty said, “It’s the responsibility of the political parties to face journalists. However, INDIA bloc’s decision to shun 14 news anchors is quite unfortunate. It depends upon the policy of the media house to select their content. But the political leaders should have the courage to face the journalists.”

“The decision by INDIA bloc is bad for the democracy. It is a challenge and an insult to journalism. The decision should have been taken after much deliberation. As the election is ahead, media creates a great opportunity for the political parties to reach out to people. But the decision is quite unfortunate. The experiment has also been done in Odisha. The political parties should face media like they are facing people,” he added.