shimla State Congress president Virbhadra Singh is unlikely to get relief from the Election Commission (EC) in the complaint filed by him against the BJP and some news channels regarding the airing of manipulated stories aimed at maligning his image and the party.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has virtually rejected the claims of the Congress leader who had made a formal complaint with Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampat that some news channels had manipulated a story against him that some payments were allegedly made to him by a steel firm.
The CEO in his reply to the EC today has termed the said news within the realm of investigative journalism and the right to freedom of speech and expression enjoyed by the media as enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution. The EC had sought a reply from the CEO on the complaint lodged by Virbhadra.
In his reply, CEO Narinder Chauhan said on a close examination of the CD of the news regarding the alleged payments, it was found that the news channel had tried to portray a larger issue regarding the banking system and not so much to target any individual.
He also opined that the news telecast by the channel focused on the nexus that existed between corporate houses and bureaucracy.
Chauhan, who viewed the CD supplied by the news channel thrice along with experts from the Information and Public Relation Department and Doordarshan, said while one English news channel sent in its reply with a copy of the CD of the programme aired, the other Hindi channel did not respond at all which resulted in the delay in filing of the reply to the EC.
The Congress chief claimed that the news story was speculative and purely politically motivated and, above all, its timing was interesting.
“Though the diary was supposed to have been found sometime in 2010, it took the channel so long to file the story on the eve of elections,” he remarked.
He said the sole objective of these unfounded false and fictitious stories was to harm him and the Congress campaign in the state.
“The interest taken by the BJP in the telecast of the news and its follow-up in the print and electronic media makes it evident that the BJP was behind it in tandem with the news channel,” he complained.
He alleged that the story clearly appeared to be a “paid-off” one by the BJP.
