Censorship – News Media/Documentaries

Setting up a huge political controversy, officials in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur – the home base of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath – blacked out the counting for parliamentary bypolls and banned the media allegedly as soon as trends started favouring the opposition candidate over that of the ruling BJP. The media regained access only after protests and political outrage.

The Samajwadi Party’s Praveen Kumar Nishad was leading over BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla when the media was blocked from the Department of Commerce at the Gorakhpur University, where the votes were being counted. The media, which gets special Election Commission cards to cover the process, was kept 15 feet from the area and the sight was blocked by curtains, which has never happened before.

District Magistrate Rajeev Rautela reportedly walked into the counting centre and stopped personnel from giving updates to the media.