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The ruling BJP, on Tuesday, countered criticism for the sedition case against 49 intellectuals and artists by underlining that neither the government nor the party had anything to do with it as the FIR was registered after a court order on an individual complaint.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said that blaming the Centre and the BJP was “absolute falsehood” spread by vested interests. Javadekar underlined that the FIR in the case was filed after a Bihar court’s order on a petition. “The government has not filed the FIR,” he added. “It has nothing to do with the BJP and the government. This is a canard spread to defame the Modi government and give an impression that there is a choking of freedom of expression in a draconian fashion under it,” he said.
“This is an absolute falsehood spread by vested interests and the tukde-tukde gang,” he said. The FIR was lodged in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district against 49 intellectuals, including Aparna Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Ramchandra Guha, for alleged sedition after they wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against growing incidents of lynching.
The case was registered after a chief judicial magistrate passed an order on a petition filed by a lawyer alleging that the writers had tarnished the image of the country.
Several groups and opposition parties have targeted the Modi government over this.
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