Chandigarh, March 26
Former Education Minister and MLA Pargat Singh has once again accused the Punjab government led by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of suppressing media voices. He alleged that just as the BJP uses dictatorial methods across the country to silence its opponents and the media, similarly, the AAP government in Punjab is misusing power to suppress media groups and voices of dissent.
Pargat said that the AAP is adopting the same authoritarian attitude in Punjab that the Modi government is allegedly using across India to prevent exposure of its misdeeds. He noted that a few months ago, the Mohali court had clearly stated that only videos containing allegedly false claims should be removed, as freedom of speech is a constitutional right. “Despite this, Punjab Police issued notices to remove 22 more posts, which included several media reports”, he said.
Pargat added that, in addition, X (Twitter) employees were also threatened with action, prompting X to approach the High Court. This, he said, is an open misuse of power by both BJP and AAP to suppress dissenting voices, showing that the AAP is acting like BJP’s “B-team,” with similar practices being implemented.
Pargat further stated that under BJP orders, the Election Commission filed a case on the social media platform X because a user had posted a video exposing a coalition between the Prime Minister and the Election Commission. Following this, actions were taken that, he claims, crossed all limits of authoritarianism. AAP in Punjab is doing the same.
Pargat added that to come to power in Punjab, the AAP made numerous false promises and misled people. Now, these same promises are being propagated on social media as part of a deceptive campaign. AAP reportedly spends crores of rupees on publicity to promote these falsehoods, wasting Punjab’s public funds on deceptive campaigns. Pargat Singh said that the AAP government is not refraining from retaliatory action against media groups and social media platforms that raise their voices against it.
