Everyone has democratic right to express his views: BJP on Panchjanya article

NEW DELHI: After the RSS distanced itself from Panchjanya's article attacking software company Infosys for hurting the country's economic interest, the BJP on Sunday said that everyone is entitled to express their point of view in a democracy.

BJP national spokesperson Nalin Kohli said that they (Panchjanya) put across a point of view and everyone is entitled to do so in a democracy. "After all we cherish freedom of press," Kohli added.

Many in the BJP, however, believe that the article has not gone down well with the top leadership in the union government and the party organisation and that was the reason behind RSS' quick clarification on the article.

"The article sent a wrong message and was not well received by the party leadership and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already asked Infosys to fix the glitches in Income Tax portal by September 15," said a party insider.

Earlier, in a social media post RSS's Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh, Sunil Ambekar said that the article published by Panchjanya reflects the individual opinion of the author. "As an Indian company, Infosys has made seminal contributions to the progress of the country. There might be certain issues with a portal run by Infosys, but the article published by Panchjanya in this context only reflects individual opinion of the author," said Ambekar.

"Panchjanya is not a mouthpiece of the RSS and the said article or opinion expressed in it should not be linked with the RSS," added Ambekar.

In its cover story titled 'Saakh Aur Aghaat' the Panchjanya has accused Infosys of hurting the country's economic interest and helping 'Tukde-tukde gang', naxals and other anti-national forces.

Pointing to regular incidents of glitches in IT portals developed by Infosys, resulting in trouble for tax payers and investors, the Panchjanya article said that such incidents brought down the trust of taxpayers in the Indian economy.

The article called Infosys 'naam bade aur darshan chhote' (great cry and little wool).

The Panchjanya article claimed that this was not the first time Infosys had done this to a government project. "First-time mistake can be called a coincidence but if the same mistake happens repeatedly, it raises doubts. There are accusations that the Infosys management is deliberately trying to destabilise India's economy," said the article. (IANS)

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