The INDIA alliance on Thursday, September 14, decided that all the political parties in their front would boycott 14 anchors from various mainstream TV news channels. A statement published by the INDIA front’s media committee said that they will not send their representatives to shows hosted by these anchors. INDIA alliance members say that they do not want to be part of news programmes that are only meant to vilify the opposition or to damage the social fabric of the country.
Among the list of anchors that the representatives of INDIA will not be appearing for debates with are: Aman Chopra, Amish Devgan and Anand Narasihman of News 18, Aditya Tyagi of Bharat Express, Sudhir Chaudhary and Chitra Tripathi of Aaj Tak, Navika Kumar of Times Now, Arnab Goswami of Republic Bharat, Gaurav Sawant and Shiv Aroor of India Today, Rubika Liyaquat of Bharat24 and Prachi Parashar of India TV.
The INDIA alliance took the decision to boycott the said anchors after their first coordination committee meeting, which took place on Wednesday. Sources who were part of the meeting said that many more names were discussed, but eventually it was decided that the list would have just 14 names.
Previously, political parties have boycotted news channels. The CPI(M) boycotted Asianet News channel for a few months, and the Trinamool Congress had shunned Times Now. However, this is the first time that an alliance has decided collectively to boycott media personalities.