New Delhi: The BJP on Thursday accused the Congress of curbing freedom of speech by protesting against a Spanish writer's novel on Sonia Gandhi and “forcing cuts” in a movie which has a woman politician said to resemble the ruling party’s president.
"A book by Javier Moro is of late in the news and amid controversy. We do not want to comment on the substance of the book but the whole incident cannot be seen in isolation. I would request the Congress to respect right to free speech and freedom of press," said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad in Delhi on Thursday.
Moro claims his novel El Sari Rojo (The Red Sari) is a work of fiction, but it has come for criticism from the Congress party for its story in which the protagonist wanting to leave India after her husband is killed.
Prasad alleged Congress supporters in the film Censor Board had "forced cuts" in Rajneeti. He claimed the Congress’s protests reminded him of Emergency when there was "press censorship and several senior editors were arrested".
Prasad defended BJP’s expulsion of senior party leader Jaswant Singh for his biography on Pakistan founder M A Jinnah by saying that the book had not been banned.
He said Singh was expelled because the contents of the book didn’t match with the BJP’s views. He denied that the BJP government in Gujarat had either banned Singh’s book or the movie Parzania, which was based on the 2002 riots in the state.
Prasad claimed the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was more democratic and didn’t oppose a book during its tenure which claimed that the terrorist attack on Parliament was fake.
"In a democracy, it is our duty to respect right to free speech and freedom of the press," Prasad said.
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