New Delhi: Congress leader Manish Tewari on Tuesday demanded that Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu withdraw and not just put on hold the order asking NDTV India to go off air tomorrow.
“IMC is recommendatory body. Minister who decides.@ndtv should not fall for this chicanery of putting coercion on hold. I&B must Withdraw order,” the former Information and Broadcasting Minister said in a tweet.
The I&B ministry had on November 2 ordered that Hindi channel NDTV India be taken off air for a day concluding that it had violated the guidelines in its coverage of the Pathankot terror attack.
The Ministry had yesterday put on hold its order, a move that the Congress said came as the “fascist” BJP finally buckled under the combined might of the media.
The decision to put the directive on hold came after NDTV’s co-chairman Prannoy Roy met Naidu and discussed the issue related to the order.
The order was put on hold after an appeal from the channel and “in sync with the government’s liberal democratic ethos and principles”, Naidu had said last night.
PTI