Former union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Arun Shourie, has hit out at the Centre’s Narendra Modi government accusing it of stifling the free press.
Speaking to Off The Cuff event organised by journalist Shekhar Gupta, Shourie said, ” I have not seen any govt like this one, that has stifled the voice of the media by putting ads in their mouth.”
The former journalist also felt that journalists in Delhi are scared of the Modi government.
On RSS, Shourie said that it was not equipped to handle policy and governance.
“It has done good work after a natural calamity, but not governance,” said Shourie.
Mocking Modi’s so-called 56-inch chest, he said, “We have pushed the people of Kashmir out of our country, every lynching has huge reverberations in the valley. If you keep saying you have a 56-inch chest, China will feel the need to puncture it.”
Speaking about the terror unleashed by the right-wing terrorists masquerading as cow protectors, Shourie said, “Today I feel the state is bending too much towards gaurakshaks and I believe it’s my duty to question. Some of us have to.”
He blamed Modi for breaking silence on the rampant killings of Muslims in the name of cow.
He said, ” Mann Ki Baat itni der ke baad yaad aati hai. PM is always on Twitter , so he was not uninformed. Woh bekhabar hai lekin itne bhi bekhabar nahi.”
In a dig at the BJP president, Amit Shah calling Mahatma Gandhi as chatur baniya, Shourie said, “We call Gandhiji a ‘chatur baniya’ and we think the world is not listening. Gandhi is our soft power. If we become practitioners of spirituality & not religiosity only then can we become superpower.”
Not so long ago, Shourie had slammed the Modi government for stifling the free press and being vindictive against media houses critical of its policies.
Speaking at the Press Club in Delhi in the immediate aftermath of the CBI raids at the houses of NDTV owners, Radhika and Prannoy Roy, he had said, “Tujh se pahle jo yahan takht nasheen tha, usko bhi khud ke khuda hone kaa yaqeen tha (The one who was occupying the throne here before you too had the false notion of being a God just like you).
He had warned that the government at the Centre muzzling the free speech will only intensify in time to come as, according to him, the Modi government believed in complete domination.
“Now they are using the third instrument, which is overt pressure and they have made NDTV an example of that. I believe this will intensify in the coming months,” he had said.