Two days after the scheduled implementation of conditional access system in Delhi was deferred, the government is now under pressure to put it off in Mumbai and Kolkata where it is scheduled to roll out from September 1.
While in Mumbai, the opposition to CAS came from BJP's ally the Shiv Sena, in Kolkata the Left Front Government is understood to have expressed reservations about its implementation.
However, the information and broadcasting ministry, which gave in to pressure from BJP to get it deferred in Delhi in view of the Assembly elections, is keen to go ahead with it in the three other metros, sources said.
With just four days to go, Shiv Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray is likely to talk to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani to defer CAS in the city, party sources said.
In Mumbai, Thackeray said he was not in favour of CAS in the metropolis and wondered "why the government was marketing the new system."
"I have already told Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shanker Prasad that implement CAS first in New Delhi... if it is successful there, then introduce it in Mumbai," Thackeray told reporters when asked about the new regime.
He said the interests of consumers and cable operators should be safeguarded at any cost.
Meanwhile, Sena MP Sanjay Nirupam told reporters, after a meeting with Prasad, that CAS was not "consumer-friendly" in its present form.
"If the government cannot implement CAS in Delhi, how can it impose it on Mumbai consumers?" he asked.
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