After its president Sonia Gandhi was attacked by senior journalist Arnab Goswami over the Palghar incident, the Congress on Thursday questioned the "silence" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over it and said the media should not cross its "lakshman rekha".
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala asked whether the prime minister approved of journalism that attacked the woman president of a national party.
"The prime minister has not come forward till today and has actually maintained a conspiratorial silence....on the content dished out by television journalism.
"We expect the prime minister to rise above political partisanship and completely reject it. Why does the PM have nothing to say about it," Surjewala asked.
"The friendship between Modi ji and that TV anchor is well known. The way the BJP is approving of such objectionable and uncalled for remarks by a TV anchor is condemnable. This shows the cheap mindset of the BJP," he said.
AICC general secretary KC Venugopal said Palghar is a stronghold of the BJP and the Maharashtra home minister said that the FIR was registered against 110 people, out of which there was not even a single Muslim.
More From This Section
"Then how can it become a communal issue," he asked.
Venugopal said the Congress believes in the freedom of expression and at the same time the party is also friendly with the media.
"As far as reporting is concerned one has to understand that, there should be a Laxman Rekha. Media people should themselves draw a line. We are not going to invoke the Laxman Rekha for the media, but there should be a self-maintained Laxman Rekha," he said.
The Congress general secretary said everyone has the right to criticise and the Congress is not against criticism.
"We are ready to accept the criticism, as long as it's healthy and genuine. But we are seeing that in the name of criticism, propaganda is being furthered. Malicious propaganda is being propagated only to trigger communal clashes throughout the country.
"How can the government allow this at a time when we all are fighting against coronavirus? The PM is saying everyday that we are united in the fight against coronavirus. But here, some people are trying to create a communal virus to defeat the 'fight against coronavirus', which is quite unfortunate," Venugopal said.
He claimed that no Congressman was involved in the attack on the journalist.
"We are very sure Congressmen have nothing to do with this. This is not our tradition, this is not our culture. We will not get physical against anybody, even those who criticise Congress, we will not go to that level. We have always adopted the path followed and shown by the father of nation Mahatma Gandhi".
He questioned the relevance of bringing up Sonia Gandhi in the Palghar issue, saying it is very unfortunate.
"On one hand, the prime minister is requesting everybody to be united. On the other hand, his own party is promoting this type of politics. This type of arrogance cannot be accepted. This is unfortunate," he said.
On Union minister Prakash Javadekar's criticism of the Congress, Surjewala said the killing of seers is being given a communal angle.
He said that all those arrested are tribals and none of them belong to the Muslim community, then how is it communal polarisation or communal violence at all.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms what is being stated in a television channel. We also urge every independent journalist to come forward and to condemn such obnoxious, as well as insulting conduct by a person, who claims to be a television anchor," Surjewala said.
In a letter to Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev claimed that the content of a show broadcast on Republic Bharat on Tuesday with Goswami as the anchor was "vile, misleading and hateful in nature".
"The broadcast in its entirety is a violation of the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994," Dev alleged in her letter dated April 22.