Chandigarh: The Editors Guild of India slammed the ‘poll’ run by the BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya on Friday, which asked if journalist and anchor Rajdeep Sardesai “should handle PR for ISIS.”
The Twitter poll, which received 1,44,287 votes, gave the options for ‘Agree’, ‘Strongly Agree’, ‘Disagree’, and ‘He is irrelevant’.The Guild called the poll a “deplorable act” and an “offensive, McCarthyist social media poll’.
EGI said in its statement: “[t]he Editors Guild of India has noted with deep dismay and concern the deplorable act of Amit Maliya, the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Information Technology cell, in which he conducted an offensive, McCarthyist social media ‘poll’ on noted journalist Rajdeep Sardesai”.
The statement said that the poll on Twitter was not only tasteless, it also questioned the integrity Rajdeep Sardesai. Notably, Sardesai a former President of the Editors Guild of India.
“The Twitter poll by a national head of the BJP also raises questions on the party’s commitment to healthy debate and dissent without allowing disagreement to degenerate into abuse. The Guild urges Mr Malviya to immediately withdraw the so-called Twitter poll, and the BJP to caution him strongly”, the statement reads.