Shimla: After a raging controversy on “missing samosas”, Himachal Pradesh government has come-out with a direction to all government departments and its agencies not to release Chief Minister’s photographs to media without prior approval of the Director, Information and Public Relations (IPR)
The government departments hosting functions where the Chief Minister is invited will be required to seek prior approval of the IPR to release photographs of the events for publicity. Normally, the Information and Public Relations department issues to the media released and mails photographs on its official website, emails and also what groups.
But sometimes the departments also issue their own press releases and photographs to the print and electronic media.
The new dictate primarily will cover pictures of the Chief Minister taken during departmental meetings, official engagements and public functions.
In a letter to all the Secretaries and heads of departmental, the Director IPR said it had come to its notice that the CM’s pictures were being released without prior approval to the media. In some cases, these photographs portray inappropriate gestures and could potentially harm the public image of the Chief Minister,” the order stated.
“This unregulated dissemination of photographs can have far-reaching consequences, which may affect the image and perception of the CM as well as of the government,” the letter reads.
The move has left many departments and also media groups quite surprised in the state. Since it comes in the wake of samosas controversy, the opposition has also found a new opportunity to assail the move.
Earlier, the CID had held an inquiry into an incident at its headquarters about missing samosas, which were ordered from a five-star hotel and were meant for the chief minister .But, mistakenly the samosas reached to the plates of CM’s security staff.
Meanwhile the CID has termed the inquiry as internal matter though have admitted about samosas having been ordered from a hotel during a function in which Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was present.