Staff Reporter / New Delhi
The Editors Guild of India (EGi) has strongly condemned the manner in which official social media handles of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have sought to portray individuals who have been questioning the government. In particular, the Guild takes strong exception to senior journalist and former President of the Guild, Rajdeep Sardesai, being targeted as a ‘Dimagi Naxal’ (Intellectual Naxal).
At a press conference, BJP MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi had stated that such ‘Intellectual Naxals’ sympathised with and provided intellectual support to Naxals; celebrated the deaths of security personnel and advocated street action rather than seeking solutions through the Parliamentary process.
An editor with India Today TV, Rajdeep Sardesai, in his long public career as a journalist and TV anchor, has been objectively presenting and analysing news developments. By no stretch can his actions and utterances be termed those of a ‘Dimagi Naxal’.
The development is particularly disturbing as this threat to a media professional comes not from a stray group or fringe elements, but the official social media handles of the ruling party. Such attacks undermine the democratic credentials of our country and further erode media freedom enshrined in our constitution under the right to freedom of expression.
The increasingly constrained space for independent media is the reason for India’s alarming fall to the 157th position out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Frontiers (RSF).
The Guild calls on the BJP’s social media outlets to refrain from attempting to paint media professionals discharging their professional duties as public enemies, and to recognise that dissent and scrutiny are an integral part of the democratic process.