The Congress said that it has always respected the media and Mr Shinde’s statement was directed at BJP’s “paid team”
Photo - PTI
New Delhi: Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who courted controversy with his foot-in-mouth comments by threatening to “crush” the electronic media, scrambled to contain the damage saying that he had actually meant the social media and not journalists.
“Electronic media means social media. I have very good relations with the press in my last 40 years. How can I (make such comments)... Media is my friend,” he said
His clarification, however, stirred the hornets’ nest with the social media users lashing out at him. The microblogging site Twitter was trending through the day where Mr Shinde became the butt of several unkind comments and jokes.
A satirist Sunil Rajguru said: “28 gaffes, misses and failures of Sushilkumar Shinde (Believe it or not, he has that many!)”
Several of the twitterati criticised Mr Shinde while at the same time attacking the Congress for its attempts to control social media.
The News Broadcasters Association, the apex body of news broadcasters, also took exception to Mr Shinde’s and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s comments and called them “unverified” and “highly defamatory”. The NBA appealed to political leaders and public figures not to level baseless charges against the media and keep the discourse “civil and sane”.
“Intimidation and preventing the media from performing its duties amounts to interfering with the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution,” the NBA said.
Mr Shinde’s comments also came in for severe criticism from BJP. The party said that it shows Congress’ “panic” with rising ground swell for the BJP.
However, the Congress said that it has always respected the media and the statement was directed at BJP’s “paid team”, which attacks anyone who targets it or Mr Modi.
( Source : dc correpondent )
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