After winning round one, Pinarayi Vijayan withdraws controversial new gag law

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Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 23 (IANS) Cornered by a maze of scams and allegations, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan appears to have won round one with the media after coming out with the Kerala Police Act amendment, forcing the aggressive media to change tracks from the various scams to the new amendment, but after a huge backlash, Vijayan decided to withdraw it on Monday.

The decision to withdraw the controversial new media gag law was on the cards, when party general secretary Sitaram Yechuri told the media in Delhi on Monday morning that the order is being reconsidered.

"You will shortly hear about it as we have taken into account the widespread apprehension about it. Our position on this is clearly articulated in the parliament and outside. That order is being reconsidered," said Yechuri.

Soon after Yechuri's public statement came, Vijayan drove to the state party headquarters and in a hour, a statement from his office surfaced in which it said this order was decided after lots of complaints surfaced about the attack of women and transgender in the social media.

"After the new amendments was made, there was lot of encore from several quarters including from those who support us. Hence it has been decided not to go forward with this new amendment. We will initiate discussions on this in the assembly and will interact with people and then decide," said Vijayan.

On Monday morning, the entire top brass of the Congress leadership walked down the main road in the state capital and protested in front of the state secretariat.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said Vijayan is trying to become another Hitler and under no circumstances would they allow this new law to become effective and minutes after this protests ended, came the news that Vijayan himself has withdrawn it.

Earlier, the new amendment came into effect from Sunday.

Off the blocks first was state BJP president K.Surendran, who said he is moving the Kerala High Court against this draconian law.

In the new amendment, it empowers the police to slap criminal charges on people by interpreting any kind of communication through any medium as defamatory.

In the new 118 A amendment any violator, be it in any media, including print and TV, online news or social media, is liable for an imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine of Rs 10,000, or with both.

As soon as this new Act was passed, protests came from far and wide. With the sole exception of CPI-M, every other body has condemned it.

It was on Saturday late night that the news first surfaced about the media gag, which left many surprised as this has come from the Vijayan government, who time and again bats for the freedom of the press, not to mention about his regular statements on what happened during the Emergency.

Since Saturday night, the Kerala media has been discussing only this topic, and hence Vijayan appears to have won the first round, as he has been able to 'scuttle' all sorts of discussion in cases like gold smuggling, Life Mission. This comes at a time, when his closest aide and party functionary C.M. Raveendran, is all set to be served a fresh notice by the Enforcement Directorate to come in for questioning in the gold smuggling case.

Raveendran was asked to appear before the ED in the first week of this month, but since he turned Covid positive, he was unable to present himself and. sources now say that a new notice will be served to him on Monday.

Following the outrage on the gagging of the media, Vijayan's explanation came which said 'the new amendment will in no way be used against free speech or impartial journalism and any fear to the contrary is unfounded'.

State Law Minister A.K. Balan while trying to defuse the issue said, "At no cost will there be any gagging of the media and this is nothing but to put brakes on the abuse of people in the social media and the police can give bail immediately."

This has turned out to be a big faux pas for the CPI-M, as from yesterday onwards, many of the supporters of Vijayan was seen defending this amendment and now that being withdrawn, they appear to have cut a sorry figure.

--IANS

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