Is it right for the Tripura CM to deliver a political message in his Independence Day speech?

A news item speaking about the Independence Day speech of the Tripura Chief Minister being blocked by Doordarshan and All India Radio did the rounds this morning.

Let us examine this issue in detail. There is a pre-recorded speech and the other is a public speech. It cannot be denied that the public speech was covered by the national broadcaster in detail.

The issue is related to the Independence Day speech which is pre-recorded and later telecast by the national broadcaster. This is not meant to be a political speech.

Check Tripura CM's speech shared by AIR:

If one goes through the speech of the Tripura CM, Manik Sarkar, the speech leans more towards a political one. He says that today the spirit of securalism is under attack.

Conspiracies and attempts are underway to create an undesirable complexity and divisions of society to invade our national consciousness in the name of religion, caste and community by inciting passions to covert India into a particular religious country and in the name of protecting the cow.

He goes on to speak about the need to counter destructive conspiracies and attacks. Making an indirect reference to the RSS, Sarkar says that the followers of those not associated with the Independence Movement, rather sabotaged the freedom movement were servile to the atrocious plunderer and merciless British, aligned with the anti-national forces have decorated themselves today in different names are striking at the root of unity and integrity of India.

Going by these remarks one gets the picture that the speech is clearly political in nature and such content cannot be part of an Independence Day speech. This was the pre-recorded speech. He is clearly accusing the Government at the centre and says that it is indulging in discriminating against the people.

Can a Chief Minister use an Independence Day speech to convey a political message? The fact of the matter is that when we checked with multiple sources, there was no black out of his speech as is being reported. In fact his public speech was covered extensively. The Hindustan Times in an article said, "DD's Agartala centre station director, Shankar Prasad Mondal, however, refuted the allegation and said the chief minister's programme was aired Tuesday evening at 6.15 pm."

Prasar Bharti in fact sent out requests twice to not edit the speech, but to re-record the same with appropriate content. Both the local and central unit sought that the speech be edited. This request was not heeded to. It is the job of the Prasar Bharti to ensure that such forums are not used to drive across a political message.

OneIndia News