The ruling YCP Ministers and MLAs may be happy over the bold step taken by CM Jaganmohan Reddy against the newspapers, TV and the social media. But the IAS officers are greatly alarmed at the impact of CM Jaganmohan Reddy’s order to gag media. They are now afraid what kind of pressure will be brought by the ruling party leaders to file cases against the media on some pretext or the other.
Till now, the police and the revenue officials at lower levels are forced to book cases to harass the opposition leaders especially those of the TDP. From now on, the bureaucrats are going to be under constant pressure to take action against the media in the name of the recent orders. The officials know such armtwisting acts will serve no purpose. Especially, the national media may react angrily to such harassment.
In a democracy, it is not wise to harass the media just for the sake of writing baseless reports. It would be more difficult to control the social media which has no publisher or editor. The IAS officers are in confusion how to go about this as no other state in the country has brought such draconian order. Moreover, there’s a feeling that the bureaucrats are going to be made culprits in the whole process.
