The Congress on Wednesday demanded that the Goa Assembly Secretariat withdraw the media accreditation guidelines it released last week, calling them “unconstitutional” and “undemocratic”. All India Congress Committee Secretary Girish Chodankar said the rules were akin to an attack on the freedom of press, PTI reported.

The Goa Assembly Secretariat guidelines, uploaded on the Assembly website, stipulate that journalists who want accreditation to cover sessions of the House must have at least five years of experience, and the newspaper they are employed at must have a circulation of more than 15,000. For websites, the requirement is 10,000 page views a day.

“The guidelines discriminate against media houses on the basis of circulation, which is unjust,” Chodankar said, urging Speaker Pramod Sawant to retract them.

The Congress also accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa of “following the mindset of party bosses in Delhi”, referring to press accreditation guidelines the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had issued on Monday before the Prime Minister’s Office intervened and ordered them to be scrapped. The ministry had issued the rules in an attempt to check the spread of fake news, but the move had drawn widespread criticism.