More ‘dislikes’ than ‘likes’ for PM’s monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’:  rare backlash on Youtube

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly talk show, Mann Ki Baat, which is aired by All India Radio, Door Darshan as well as a large number of private channels, besides streaming on several Youtube channels and Facebook, faced a rare backlash on Sunday.

On the PM’s own Youtube channel and the BJP’s official Youtube channel, dislikes outnumbered the likes by huge margins. Till Monday morning dislikes had surged to 3.38 lakh, while likes stood at 42 thousand, despite the BJP’s IT cell working overtime to generate likes.

A possible reason cited is the PM’s complete silence on students protesting against holding the JEE-NEET entrance tests on September 13. While the Supreme Court has dismissed pleas for deferring the test in view of the lockdown and non-availability of transport, it was expected that the Prime Minister would address the issue in his radio talk and possibly announce postponement of the tests.

But the Prime Minister made no reference to the on-going agitation by students and the opposition. Six opposition states have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court but Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank cited the fact that most of the Admit cards had been downloaded as indicative of examinees’ being in favour of holding the tests.

But examinees are not impressed. Thousands of examinees, they have said, will not be able to appear in the tests because buses and trains are not available and because they do not have access to personal vehicle or cannot afford to pay cabs.

Supreme Court Justice Arun Mishra, due to retire this week and who famously said that ‘life must go on’ while dismissing petitions for postponing the examination, was on Monday trolled because he had cited the pandemic and lockdown restrictions to turn down the request to attend a farewell meeting for him by the Supreme Court Bar association.

Why then force the students to appear for the tests, read a tweet this morning.