Yesterday, The Indian Express reported that CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and All India Forward Bloc leader G Devarajan were asked by public broadcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio to drop the phrases “communal authoritarian regime”, “Muslim”, and “draconian laws” from their speeches during broadcast time allotted to them.
Prasar Bharati told the newspaper that Doordarshan and All India Radio follow “conduct rules” laid down by the Election Commission of India.
We looked them up. The EC on March 29 had issued an order on the allotment of time to national and regional parties on Doordarshan and All India Radio. The order included certain “dos and don’ts”, including that broadcasts on Doordarshan and All India Radio “will not permit…attack on religion and communities”.
And do these guidelines only apply to this allotted time period, or to the elections as a whole?
An EC official, on condition of anonymity, said, “The guidelines specifically apply only to the allotted time period. But generally speaking, they cover the whole of the election period…ECI does not have its own code for public broadcasters. In fact, it borrows from the programme codes of public broadcasters.”
We checked the programme code as per the Prasar Bharti Act of 1990 and the EC’s “dos and don’ts” indeed are lifted from it.
This story was originally published in thenewsminute.com. Read the full story here.
