Lok Sabha Speaker promises to resolve media issues inside Parliament complex
Opposition leaders protested the curbing of mediapersons, including restrictions imposed on the movement of accredited journalists inside the Parliament complex
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla conducts the proceedings of the House during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, in New Delhi on July 29, 2024
| Photo Credit: ANI
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on July 29 met the media covering parliamentary proceedings and assured them that all issues related to movement restrictions on them and coverage would be resolved, hours after they staged a silent protest on the Parliament premises on a day when Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi also raised the issue in his speech during the Budget discussion.
Mr. Gandhi urged the Speaker to address the grievances of journalists, who were protesting the move to prevent them from standing in front of Makar Dwar where they had been interacting with parliamentarians. The Congress leader also met them at an enclosure where they were holding the protest.
Following Mr. Birla’s assurance, it is learnt that a bigger enclosure with better facility is likely to be made available to the journalists and they will continue to interact with the Parliamentarians outside the enclosure.
Rajya Sabha Parliamentary party leader Derek O’Brien, who also met the journalists earlier, called it an exercise in censorship to restrict the media’s movement in Parliament. “What is happening to media in Parliament, the whole country must know. Parliament has been turned into a deep, dark chamber. A dark hole. Media is being kept out,” Mr. O’Brien said. He also added that Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee had asked her party to reach out to all other Opposition parties to rally in support of the media.
Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi visited the journalists along with Congress Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), she said, “The media is the fourth pillar of democracy, whatever their shortcomings and criticism directed towards them, they should never be silenced. Today the media was restricted from doing their job in yet another arbitrary decision taken by the government.”
In the Business Advisory Committee meeting on Monday, Congress Deputy Leader Gaurav Gogoi demanded post-Covid review and access for all mediapersons and opposed the way media was kept in a box outside the House. A committee of parties expected to be formed to look into the issue.
The Delhi Union of Journalists, through a statement, also expressed shock over the restrictions imposed on the movement of accredited journalists inside the Parliament complex.
“This move denies them access to MPs. Journalists were today forced to hold a silent protest against these restrictions in the premises… in recent years the number of passes issued to journalists wanting to cover Parliament has been sharply cut down. Several other moves have been made in recent years to deny mediapersons access to government offices and an unofficial ban imposed on government officials to stop them from speaking to journalists,” it said, demanding greater transparency in government functioning.
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