One day before a truncated session of the Karnataka Assembly commenced on Thursday, 10 October, Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri banned private national and regional television channels from broadcasting the proceedings live, IANS reported.
According to an official from the Speaker’s office, the directive given to all channels is to reportedly take the feed only from state-run Doordarshan. DD and the Information Department will be the only ones to provide access to the proceedings.
As the news spread and people expressed much surprise, CM BS Yediyurappa first tweeted asking the ban be reconsidered and shortly after, mysteriously deleted it.
Speaking to ANI on Thursday, the Speaker said, “We have taken decision to ban media for 3 days on sample basis. We are following parliamentary rule.” Notably, the last time a ban on media recording proceedings had been enforced was in 2012, in the aftermath of Laxman Savadi, now the Deputy CM, and two others being caught watching porn while the Assembly was in session.
Interestingly, despite not being an MLA, Laxman Savadi was inducted into CM Yediyurappa’s cabinet earlier in August and made deputy chief minister, nearly a month after the BJP came to power in the state.
Congress veteran and former CM, Siddaramaiah, slammed the ruling and condemned the blanket ban.
A number of citizens took to social media to voice their opinions, some speaking out against the private media blackout and others stating that there is nothing wrong with using resources of state media.
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