Defying Centre's Ban, Congress Screens BBC Documentary on PM Narendra Modi in Kerala

BBC Documentary Row: The Kerala Congress on Thursday held the screening of the controversial BBC series on PM Modi on Shangumugham Beach which the Centre has banned in India saying it's false and motivated "propaganda".

Thiruvananthapuram: Despite the Centre’s ban on the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Thursday screened the controversial series - "India: The Modi Question" - at the Shanghumugham beach for the general public. According to reports, the screening of the controversial documentary was first held at the KPCC headquarters for its staff and party workers.

KPCC general secretary G S Babu said, “We received a positive response to the screening from the general public. Lots of people turned up to see it. In view of the positive response, we will show it across the State at various places."

KPCC showed the introduction portion of the first part of the documentary and the entire second part at the screening, he said. The Kerala Congress leader further said the response indicates that people want to know what is there in the documentary and what it is all about. Various wings of Congress have already screened the first part of the documentary in several parts of the State.

BJP, Congress Spar Over BBC Documentary on PM Modi

Attacking the Congress for allowing the screening of the controversial series, Union Minister Jitendra Singh launched a scathing attack on the Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and said that if the Congress had respect for the judiciary, it would not have supported the BBC documentary.

"Whatever Mallikarjun Kharge is saying is completely different from reality. If he and his party men had respect for the judiciary, they would not have supported the BBC documentary," the Union Minister said. "I do not agree that the Judiciary itself had given a clean chit to the Chief Minister of the then Government of Gujarat regarding Godhra, so is this not a contempt of court, the kind of attitude they have, I think this is the doublespeak of the Congress," Singh said.

Centre's Ban on BBC Modi Documentary 

UK’s British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently aired a two-part series attacking PM Modi`s tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister during the Gujarat riots of 2002. The documentary sparked outrage and was removed from select platforms. In a strong rebuttal to the BBC documentary on Modi, more than 300 eminent Indians including retired judges, retired bureaucrats, and retired armed forces veterans signed a statement slamming the British national broadcaster for showing "unrelenting prejudice" toward India and its leader. 

The Centre also last week directed the blocking of multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the documentary. The two-part BBC documentary, which claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of that State, has been trashed by the Ministry of External Affairs as a "propaganda piece" that lacked objectivity and reflected a "colonial mindset."