Written by: Express News Service
2 min readMumbaiFeb 12, 2011 02:02 AM IST
First published on: Feb 12, 2011 at 02:02 AM IST
Union Agriculture Minister and NCP president Sharad Pawar on Friday offered to apologise for his nephew and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s controversial remarks about mediapersons,following which media organisations decided to withdraw their boycott of the latter’s functions.
Pawar,who was in Kolhapur,said as NCP president he was ready to apologise as his party would never support such statements from any of its leaders. However,he said some senior journalists should examine the videoclips of the function in which his nephew reportedly made the remarks.
The journalist organisations met in Mantralaya later in the day and called off their boycott of Ajit’s functions. However,they have announced a morcha in all districts on February 15 to demand enactment of a law to protect journalists on the lines of that for doctors.
Ajit had called for curbs on journalists at a public meeting in Nanded last weekend,when TV cameras had turned to a farmer who was asking questions to him from the audience. He blamed the media for exaggerating issues and giving negative publicity instead of showing the truth,following which media organisations gave him a 48-hour ultimatum to apologise and sought the intervention of Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan in the issue. They had,on Wednesday,boycotted Chavan’s Cabinet briefing,after which Chavan sought an explanation from Ajit who had declined to apologise. The mediapersons were boycotting Ajit’s public functions since then.
Meanwhile,the members of the Marathwada Television Journalists Association (MTVJA),Aurangabad District Marathi Patrakar Sangh and Photo Journalists Association boycotted the functions of Governor K Sankaranarayanan and Chief Minsiter Prithviraj Chavan in Aurangabad on Friday.
Chavan inaugurated the two-day national e-governance meet while Sankaranarayanan inaugurated a theatre in Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University. Besides an apology from the deputy chief minister,the organisations were demanding the transfer of Nanded superintendent of police Sandeep Karnik. The television journalists association has announced a protest march to the district collector’s office and all tehsil offices in the region on February 15.
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