Sacred Games row: Rahul Gandhi disapproves of censorship

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday appeared to disapprove demands to censor uncharitable references to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the web series Sacred Games. Sacred Games, the critically-acclaimed web series by Netflix, has run into trouble with a Congress supporter filing a police complaint against its makers for insulting late Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Rahul Gandhi in a tweet said, “BJP/RSS believe the freedom of expression must be policed & controlled. I believe this freedom is a fundamental democratic right. My father lived and died in the service of India. The views of a character in a fictional web series can never change that.” With his tweet the Congress president made it clear that Congress believes in freedom of speech and they don’t condone the complaints against it, without explicitly referring to the cases.

At earlier occasions also Mr Rahul Gandhi has hit out at the BJP and RSS for trying to curb freedom of speech and expression. His tweet has put to rest all the confusion prevailing in the Congress about the party’s position on Sacred Games. BJP leader and IT Cell chief Mr. Amit Malviya had also tweeted the clips from the web series that carried references to the former Prime Minister. After the cases that were hoisted against the makers of the web series questions were being raised about the policy of the Congress regarding “double standards” being adopted by the party over freedom of speech.

The web series Sacred Games talks about certain incidents in India’s political history including Rajiv Gandhi’s alleged role in the Bofors scam, the Congress government’s controversial sterilisation scheme under Indira Gandhi’s tenure, and the Shah Bano case.