'Journalists must introspect why Modi shuns them'

If journalists feel that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar are keeping away from them, the media persons should introspect on the reasons why, Goa assembly Speaker Rajendra Arlekar said Thursday.

"It is not my view that they are staying away. If it is your view that they (Modi and Parrikar) are staying away from journalists, then journalists should introspect why," Arlekar said at a function held here in the memory of journalist Madhav Gadkari.

The speaker, a BJP legislator from Pernem constituency, said this after the editor of a local vernacular daily during a speech at the function said Modi and Parrikar were avoiding the media in New Delhi and Goa, respectively.

Arlekar's comment comes at a time when Parrikar has been scathing in his attack on the media, even asking a business lobbying group to keep the media away from interactions where policy-related issues are deliberated.

Modi has also been accused of keeping the media at arm's length, with the Editors Guild of India Wednesday ruing the lack of interface between the Prime Minister's Office and journalists.