Strongly condemning registration of case against personal assistant of Nihalsinghwala MlA Rajwinder Kaur and two others for “posting objectionable remarks” on Facebook against the State Agriculture Minister Tota Singh, Punjab Congress on Friday dubbed it as an attempt to curb democratic dissent at every level and in every media.
“The spirit of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who is considered to be the symbol of extreme atrocities against the people, seemed to have entered the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal under whom there is no place of democratic dissent and criticism,” said Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Partap Singh Bajwa.
The case has been registered against MlA’s PA Baldev Singh Babbu, and NRIs Rajwinder Singh Khosa and Ravi Bassi after a post on Facebook, a social netweoking website, compared Tota Singh with parrot.
“Under the Badal regime, there is undeclared censorship on the TV media as no channel dare carry any programme which is against Badal, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal or the Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Any channel trying to do that is unplugged immediately,” he said. Bajwa stated that Sukhbir has not allowed several channels to start their Punjabi news programmes as he has monopolized the cable network and the Punjabi news through his own PTC group of channels.“He has tried to dictate print media by stopping advertisements to several leading newspapers. Now, the target is social media. Such curbs are alien in any democratic set up and are not witnessed even during Hitler’s dictatorial regime,” said Bajwa. He made it clear that dissent could not be crushed like this and what was all the more ironical was that Badal, for years, had been claiming himself to be the champion of civil rights.