EC reins in NaMo TV

Mukesh Ranjan in New Delhi

Beaming of NaMO TV through across the direct to home (DTH) platforms for the past about a fortnight with exclusive content around Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the BJP, has kicked off a huge controversy this election season. Opposition parties had approached the Election Commission (EC) claiming “utter disregard for rules” in showing the channel. The EC, however, has put pre-certification spanner for “political” content on the TV.

Both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) complained to the poll panel against the channel. On April 1, the AAP wrote to poll watchdog asking it if permission was granted to NaMo TV. “Can permission be granted to a party to have their own TV channel even after the model code of conduct is enforced? If no permission was sought, then what action has been taken,” AAP’s legal cell member Mohammed Irshad said in the letter. The Congress also wrote to the poll panel raising its objections against the channel.

Following the complaints, the EC had written to the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry and asked it to clarify the government’s position on the matter. It is learnt from sources that the ministry, in its reply, has supposedly conveyed to the EC that the said channel is an advertising platform on the lines of telemarketing, and such activities on DTH platforms do not require the government’s approval for uplinking/downlinking and left it on the poll panel to take a call on the issue.

Later, when the BJP officially accepted that the content on NaMO TV is streamed through NaMo App, which is sponsored by it, the EC on Thursday ruled that all content on the TV channel should be “removed immediately” as it did not have prior certification. It also said, in its order, that all recorded programmes displayed on NaMo TV should be pre-certified by the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) of Delhi and asked the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for a compliance report to be sent to them “immediately”.

“As NaMo TV/Content TV is sponsored by a political party, all recorded programmes of political contents displayed on the channel/platform would be covered under purview of the commission’s order dated April 15, 2004, issued in pursuance of the order dated April 13, 2004, of the Supreme Court in Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Vs. M/s Gemini TV (2004) 5 SCC 714. Accordingly, all political advertisements and recorded programmes with political contents are mandatorily required to be pre-certified by the MCMC before telecasting/displaying,” said the EC. Speaking strictly off the record, a senior BJP leader told The Tribune: “A proposal for launching a TV channel was first sent to the I&B Ministry for its approval but the bureaucracy there said not possible. Later it was decided to disseminate the content generated by NaMO.com through NaMo app and DTH platforms.”

BJP sources said it is like NaMo app brought on DTH platform backed by multiple servers for dissemination of information related to the parties and the Prime Minister. They also said, as NaMo app, BJP supports NaMO TV too.

Incidentally, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had in August 2014 proposed barring political parties, religious bodies, government-funded entities and other affiliates from entering the broadcasting and television channel distribution sectors. “A file was readied on this and is still pending with the government. It also talked about regulations on channels running through DTH platforms,” sources said. The TRAI, in its proposal, had said, since “platform services” are offered as exclusive services by a DTH operator to its subscribers, it should not be shared with other networks. But as the NaMO TV is being shared across major DTH platforms, the channel is available nationally.

  The controversy rocked the country soon after the BJP, from its official twitter handle, had informed about the channel on March 30, 2019. “Now you can watch real time coverage of PM @narendramodi’s election campaign on NaMo TV. Say NaMo again with NaMo TV. Tune in to get real time coverage of PM Modi’s election campaign and a lot more fascinating content,” said the party’s official twitter handle.

There are several ways that viewers can receive a channel on their TV — cable TV services that can be received through multi-system operators and/or local cable operators, DTH services, internet protocol television services, headend-in-the-sky, and terrestrial TV services in smaller geographic regions. Together these are called distribution platform operators (DPOs).

When this reporter contacted officials of the Ministry of Law & Justice for their comments, they were unanimous in their view that since the matter was never referred to it, they have nothing to say. However, explaining the legal position, a senior official of the Law Ministry said, since such services do not require permission from the I&B Ministry, it cannot take action in this regard. “But regardless of who owns the service, two laws are still applicable: restrictions on free speech mentioned in Article 19 of the Constitution and the content on such services has to comply with the Advertisement and Programme Codes of the Cable TV Act, 1994,” he said.

Incidentally, according to reports published in the past, in 2007, during the Gujarat Assembly elections, the BJP had launched a channel called Vande Gujarat. Again, in 2012, state unit of the BJP had reportedly collaborated with five Gujarati channels to broadcast NaMo TV.