Doordarshan and AIR censor speeches of opposition leaders including Yechury; terms such as 'Muslim' and 'communal government' omitted

NEW DELHI: The Doordarshan and the All India Radio (AIR) have omitted some of the terms used by opposition leaders in their election speeches. The edits were made to the speeches of CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Forward Bloc leader G Devarajan. An official in Prasar Bharati explained that the action was taken as per the directions of the Election Commission of India.

Remarks such as 'draconian laws', 'communal government' and 'Muslim' were omitted. Doordarshan requested the removal of the words before recording the speeches of the leaders. Yechury was asked to omit the term 'communal authoritarian regime'.

Both Yechury and Devarajan have responded to the action of omitting the remarks from their speeches.

"Strangely, they did not find anything wrong in the Hindi version of my speech which was just a translation of the original English speech. However, the English speech was modified according to their directions," Yechury said.

G Devarajan said that his speech contained a line referring to discriminatory clauses in the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.

"They told me that the word 'Muslim' should be omitted. I argued that the term should be used to highlight the discrimination against Muslims as the Act refers to all other eligible minority communities. However, they did not allow it," Devarajan said.