Three Union Ministers – Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Nirmala Sitharaman – have questioned the returning of Sahitya Academy Awards by some eminent writers. In a Facebook post, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed it a case of ideological intolerance. He said, there are large number of writers with left or Nehruvian leaning who have been recognized by the Government in the past and many of them have spoken out against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi even when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. <br/><br/>He said, how many of them protested or raised their voice during the emergency and 1984 anti-sikh riots. He said, the Dadri lynching incident was extremely unfortunate and condemnable. <br/><br/>Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today questioned the intentions and timings of the return of the award by litterateurs in the wake of Dadri lynching incident. In a exclusive interview to AIR, Mr Prasad also raised objections to putting blames on Centre for the failure of state administration. The Minister said that some section of people are trying to gain political advantage in the ongoing Bihar polls by creating unfounded controversies.<br/><br/>Talking to AIR , Nirmala Sitharaman, the Commerce Minister said, blaming Centre for the incident and returning the awards is unfortunate.<br/><br/>

Three Union Ministers – Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Nirmala Sitharaman – have questioned the returning of Sahitya Academy Awards by some eminent writers. In a Facebook post, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed it a case of ideological intolerance.<br/><br/> He said, there are large number of writers with left or Nehruvian leaning who have been recognized by the Government in the past and many of them have spoken out against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi even when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. <br/><br/>He said, how many of them protested or raised their voice during the emergency and 1984 anti-sikh riots. He said, the Dadri lynching incident was extremely unfortunate and condemnable. <br/><br/>Talking to AIR this morning, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Commerce Minister said, blaming Centre for the incident and returning the awards is unfortunate.<br/><br/>Communications and Information Technology Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, while talking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting, also said that big incidents happened in the country earlier, but why didn't they return the awards then.