To obtain a press pass to attend Shah’s event in Tamil Nadu, journalists have to give personal identification details.
New Delhi: Journalists who want a press pass to attend an Amit Shah event in Chennai on 9 July will have to furnish their Aadhaar, voter ID or driver’s licence number.
This is what the Tamil Nadu BJP, which has released a form to journalists, wants. A xerox copy of the identification card has to be attached with the form.
The event is an address by the BJP president to booth-level party workers and will be held at VGP Golden Beach resort in Chennai.
The form, released by the state BJP’s media cell, was sent to journalists Friday. A copy of the form was shared by a few Twitter users, but it was not publicly available.
The form also asks for other basic details like vehicle number, name of the organization, editor’s name and office address.
“Actually we are not interested in the details, but some people who have newly joined their institutions, they wanted entry. The SPG is insisting on a high level of security. The details are optional. No journalist is obligated to furnish them. We are doing this to help them,” A.N.S. Prasad, BJP’s Tamil Nadu media convener told ThePrint.
However, it s not mentioned anywhere on the form that the details are optional.
The form also mentions that journalists who do not have press accreditation yet should bring a copy of their company id proof with a company seal signed by the editor.
High security VIP events, even those featuring the president or the prime minister, mostly require journalists to furnish their press accreditation cards. As an additional measure, the invite too has to be presented sometimes.
It is an anomaly for a party leader’s event to ask for personal details like Aadhaar or voter-id card numbers.
Shah is visiting Tamil Nadu as part of his nationwide tour in the run up to 2019. He is scheduled to meet senior BJP leaders.
https://twitter.com/madhavpramod1/status/1015155588806799360
Journalists took to Twitter to protest the move, saying it reflects on the state of our country. Pramod Madhav, a correspondent with Mirror Now, in a cheeky tweet compares Shah’s demand with that of India’s Space Research Organization which only asks for an accreditation.
What are you going to do with Aadhar number or Voter ID number of journalists @AmitShah ? Is your visit a political event or PDS distribution ? pic.twitter.com/PRQB7ljRLT
— Savukku_Shankar (@savukku) July 6, 2018
Savukku Shankar, an independent journalist and critic who works in Tamil Nadu, also tweeted the form and quipped whether Shah’s visit was a “political event or PDS distribution?”