Mr Shinde: Do not muzzle down social media

Manoj Sharma

Sushil Kumar Shinde, our Home Minister, in habitual controversial remarks and then later regret and clarifies his statement. This time he has threatened to crush the electronic media. A day earlier, Kejriwal of Aaam Aadmi Party, also had talked he will fix the media. This is not the first time Shri Shinde has put his shoe in his mouth with his controversial and slip in the tongue statements.

Not long ago Mr Shinde blamed, BJP and RSS for promoting Hindu terror and then went back on his statement when controversy erupted. Recently, he wrote a letter to CMs of states asking them not to arrest innocent Muslim youth. Is our Home Minister forgot that persons involved in terrorist activities are arrested by police or state intelligence agencies with the help of IB and NIA? Was Sadhvi Pragya falsely arrested on the instructions of the Congress party? To counter the growing perception in India that not all Muslims are terrorists but every arrested terrorist is a Muslim.

It is sad to see our Home Minister is in the habit of making false, mischievous and controversial statements and later regretting them. Soon after making his statement that he will crush the electronic media, he took a u turn and made another gaffe, when he said his statement was aimed at the social media where the Congress is at the receiving end. But whatever is written on the social media against the Congress is very true. The Congress never realised the importance of social media. The Congress party was happy managing the media and media was happy getting managed and ended up getting the tag of paid media on social sites.

The Congress leaders must be congratulated for the fact that they managed media in a professional manner at least after 2007 and till Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, MP and Delhi where the Congress got a drubbing except Manipur. Before polls in five states, all evening shows on TV channels raked up controversy over Gujarat riots. Modi bashing was the order of the day. If this was not enough they came up with the breaking news on Ishrat Jahan case every now and then and debated the issue on prime time slots and again ended up debating Modi. One fine day Amit Shah’s name was unnecessarily dragged in the snooping controversy, but the target was Modi and Gujarat Government. In most of these debates Shakeel bhai, Rashid sahib, Khurshid Sahab and other Muslim leaders made appearance on the TV channels and they were the face of the Congress who made sure to project themselves and the Congress party as the messiah of the Muslims.

On corruption cases like 2G, Commonwealth and Coal scam, Congress adopted a strategy to wear out the masses by debating it day in and day out. Congress wanted people to reach a saturation point where people will switch to more interesting channels. It is for this reason Shindeji, you said with audacity that earlier, Bofors was a talking point. Now it is Coal. People forgot about it. This too will be forgotten.

The nation also saw Salman Khurshid’s aggression when his corrupt practices were exposed. People saw how he had threatened the scribes with his infamous pen and blood remarks. Do Congress forgot that this is not Indira’s India of emergency days where media could be intimidated or in today’s time managed the way Congress wished? We are living in a time when social media is a potent tool in the hands of the common man who are also voters of this nation. They (voters) don’t need only voting day to express their anger at the ballot box.

People’s reaction will reflect on social media every day, every minute against corruption, mismanagement, inflation or any sin committed by the political class.

The 2014 general election is also a battle between the paid media and those who disagree it have found a platform in social media to raise their voice.