Hoshiarpur- Former cabinet minister and senior BJP leader Teekshan Sood said in a press note issued that during the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, the freedom of the press is being completely robbed. From the beginning, the policy of putting pressure on the print and electronic media in exchange for giving government advertisements has been adopted.
Every media institution is being monitored by people appointed by the Aam Aadmi Party. Newspapers or channels that speak against the government are threatened and government advertisements are also cut. Sood said that before this, such a period was seen in independent India only when Mrs. Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency and the people associated with any newspaper that wrote against her were victimized.
During that period, the Punjab Kesari Patra Group had to run the press with tractors when the power was cut due to government excesses, which was a unique example in itself. Tikhon Sood alleged that two days ago, the Mann government stopped the delivery vehicles of all the newspapers in Punjab and censored them.
Because these newspapers had published Swati Maliwal's statement in which she had alleged that a Sheesh Mahal was being prepared for Kejriwal in Chandigarh. With this action, the government gave a clear message to the newspapers that they were not allowed to print news against the government.
He said that by imposing an undeclared emergency, the Mann government has violated the democratic rights of speech and expression and this is a direct attack on the fourth pillar of democracy, the press. Sood warned that just as the Congress had to pay the price for such actions, the people will now teach the Aam Aadmi Party a similar lesson.