While getting a pass at the media desk on day two (December 24) of Mood Indigo, IIT-B’s (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay) annual cultural festival, the desk people suggested to attend an interaction between Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and Arnab Goswami. It was the top event of Mood I 2016.
CM Fadnavis was recently in news over a battle between the pros, and cons of demonetisation, it’s effect on the economy, and Goswami has been off air since he quit in November 2016. The topic of discussion today was ‘Transform Maharashtra’ initiative, and this platform was also used to launch the official website for the initiative. Well, who would miss this kind of an afternoon, so this correspondent decided to put this event on the itinerary of things to cover.
When PaGaLGuY went to cover the event, this correspondent was denied entry, and the organisers stated random reasons for it.
First was, this event is by invite only, second was quite a funny thing to say, we are out of seats for media people, and third was it is a high-profile event, we cannot let you enter. We ain’t no troublemakers Mood I.
Though this event was suggested as the top event of Mood I 2016 by the media desk, they never informed of taking any special measures that would be essential to attend it, neither by the media head, when PaGaLGuY applied for passes two weeks ago over email, nor at the media desk, two day ago.
To avoid the argument, one of the media coordinators standing right there, Yash Dhoble, overturned his badge.
Seeing no way in for the moment, this correspondent decided to walk away at this point.
However, there is a twist to this tale in that this correspondent did indeed manage to enter the event and cover it. The punchline? As a visitor, through a line for ‘visitors’ less than 10 feet away. And no id’s were checked here.