There’s little that can strive to keep Union Minister VK Singh away from the honeyed fields of controversy. On Wednesday, he lashed out at the media in a tweet, calling them “presstitutes”––a term he’d actually used before. His political opponents were not amused, however, and called his comment both “deplorable” and “insensitive”.
It is very unfortunate that a minister is using abusive language against the media or against anyone. He is holding a very important position. It is for Narendra Modi to take a call on this.
–Shakeel Ahmed, Spokesperson, Congress
The remark was made in a tweet, following a press briefing in Djibouti where the former Army chief is overseeing the evacuation of the Indian citizens from war-torn Yemen. The minister apparently used the term to take a dig at a section of the media which had criticised him for attending Pakistan Day celebrations alongside Kashmir separatist leaders.
A day earlier when the minister in an obvious sarcastic jibe, said that evacuating Indians from Yemen was less exciting than going to the Pakistan Embassy, the joke was completely lost on Times Now. The channel immediately latched on to his comment and coined a hashtag #VKDisaster, ostensibly to criticise him.
Disaster was spelled for Times Now, however. Because with VK Singh getting good press for his on ground efforts in Yemen, the hashtag only backfired, leading to an onslaught of criticism against the channel. The twitterati came out in support of VK Singh and bashed the channel for undermining his role in the evacuation process in the gulf country. Many felt that Times Now was too serious to take a joke!
It must be remembered that this is the not first time that VK Singh has attacked the media. Back in February 2014, Editors Guild had slammed VK Singh’s use of the term “presstitutes” to describe the media, calling it unbecoming of a former Indian Army chief to say so. He’d also used the controversial word in January last year when he trashed a report about the suspicious movement of army units carried by a newspaper.
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