Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri bars journalists entry to Legislator's Home

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri has barred the entry of print and TV journalists, and cameramen to Legislator's Home near Vidhana Soudha citing 'invasion of privacy'.

The decision came months after the ban on TV cameras inside the Legislative Assembly on October 2019.

According to a notice by the Karnataka Legislative Assembly secretariat, the time spent by MLAs after their work hours at the Legislator's Home is private in nature. "At such an hour, if media personnel visit the MLAs, it will be an invasion of privacy. If MLAs seek to give an interview to journalists, the Speaker has ordered that an arrangement can be made outside the gates of the Legislator's House," the notice read.

This is among a series of curbs imposed on the media at Vidhana Soudha in recent days. During the early days of the Congress-JD(S) coalition in July 2018, the then chief minister HD Kumaraswamy had banned the entry of journalists to Vidhana Soudha, which was lifted briefly after due to widespread criticism.

Fifteen months later, in October 2019, Kageri banned the entry of camera crews to the Legislative Assembly gallery. The order has stayed put despite criticism by the opposition, which had termed it 'fatal for democracy'.