Spitting fire against award-returning writers and film directors, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das on Monday accused them of spreading ideological terrorism, with their specific targets being Centre and BJP-ruled State Governments.
launching the monthly Hindi magazine ‘Navotthan’ published by Hindustan Samchar on Monday, Das criticised those who returned their national awards in protests against Dadri-incident.
“We need to decide what we wish to achieve with our freedom of speech. Some ideologists are giving back awards as if they are returning a lowly thing. But they are an insignificant minority — out of the 1,004 writers who were bestowed with the Sahitya Akademi Award, only 29 have returned their awards,” the Chief Minister said.
He continued, “left-oriented political parties had a cadre of writers and creators who supported their ideology in return of favours, but shifted to the Congress when they lost popularity. Now these quasi-secular ideologists are wrongly targeting the BJP to serve their needs. But there was such no fuss from them or the Congress over Godhra train burning or 1984 Sikh riots or Kashmiri Pandit exodus from Kashmir.”
On the BJP being targeted over Dadri killing in Uttar Pradesh, Das said, “The incident took place in Uttar Pradesh where the Samajwadi Party is in power. So what is the BJP being targeted for.”
Referring to the ‘change in taste of audience and readers who disapprove of sensational news with false facts’, the Chief Minister stated that media has a crucial role to play in this entire scheme of events and thus should report facts responsibly and they will continue to receive government’s support.
Union Minister Sudarshan Bhagat, RSS Sarkarywah Suresh Joshi, a number of Cabinet ministers of the state government alongwith other dignitaries of the state government were present on the occasion.