Journalists will lose jobs if PM Modi continues interviews via emails: Shiv Sena

In an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana, the BJP’s bickering ally said the prime minister should instead give answers to questions people have in their minds through “face-to-face” interviews.

Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for keeping the press at arm’s length, the Shiv Sena on Monday said that journalists would lose their jobs if the PM continued to speak to the media through emails instead of “face-to-face” interviews.

In an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana, the BJP’s bickering ally alleged that the prime minister had chosen a “short cut of e-mails” for media interviews and even called the exercise a “propaganda” and “a kind of monologue” prevalent in some communist countries like China and Russia.

“Journalists would soon lose their jobs in case the prime minister continued with giving interviews through e-mails and that he only would be tasked with making available employment for them,” the Sena said in its editorial.

“Prime Minister Modi has suddenly given interviews through e-mail. That means those were not face-to-face (interviews). Journalists sent questions to the Prime Minister’s Office and they were given written answers,” the BJP ally added.

Claiming that Modi was a “friend” of journalists till the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Sena alleged that the prime minister had not addressed a single press conference after becoming the prime minister.

“But after becoming prime minister, he has created a cage around himself,” the Sena said, adding that not speaking to the media “does not behove” Modi’s personality.

Claiming that many journalists gave it a nature of the prime minister’s interview, the party said, “In other words, it is called a campaign or propaganda”.

The Sena also said that people have questions in their minds on issues like unemployment and it was required of the prime minister “who considers himself as the pradhan sevak (prime servant)” to answer the same. “But instead the short cut of e-mail interviews was chosen,” the editorial read.