BENGALURU: Congress leadership shockingly decided to block representatives of two television channels to cover its press conference called on Tuesday. The media briefing was held at KPCC office on Queen’s Road to demand an inquiry into allegations of irregular business dealings of Amit Shah’s family.
On the instructions of senior Congress leader Randeep Surjewala, who was addressing the press conference, the KPCC decided to keep out the mediapersons from Times Now and Republic channels. Despite repeated protests by journalists from other media houses, they refused to allow them in.
Surjewala’s press conference meant to demand an inquiry into Shah family’s business dealings was the result of a story that first appeared on the media web publication, The Wire. Questioned if it was not hypocrisy to ban channels that did not suit their purposes, Surjewala said, “When you carry out pre-meditated, biased and fixed agenda as agents of the ruling party, then some semblance of journalism dies. Journalism is not about Congress or BJP, or SP or any other political party. Journalism is about asking me difficult questions. It is also about telling me where have I gone wrong.”
All the state Congress leaders, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC president G Parameshwara and working president Dinesh Gundu Rao refused to answer questions from the media about not allowing the reporters in. The trigger for the act seems to have been the Times Now report over alleged links of Robert Vadra with absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.
As the BJP stepped up its demand for Congress to break its silence, Surjewala said that Vadra had been subject to witch- hunting. “Narendra Modi has been in power for 41 months. They are in power in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Let them conduct any investigation. Forty one months of witch-hunting later, they have not been able to find any violations,” he said.