A Page From History, a long-running weekly show on Lok Sabha TV, will air one last time tonight at 8 pm. The show has been discontinued on a somewhat short notice.

Early today, the anchor of the show, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, put up a Facebook post with the image of a letter he received from Lok Sabha Secretariat on Friday, September 11.

The letter along with the Facebook post informs Mukhopadhyay that the “Competent Authority” – given the capital initials, we’re guessing it must be really high up – has decided on August 24, 2015, to discontinue A Page From History. The letter further emphasises that “no fresh episode of the programme, in its present form and with the present guest anchor, shall be recorded”.

Mukhopadhyay has been anchoring the show for about six years when it first aired on Lok Sabha TV in July 2009. He’s a journalist and authored a biography of the current Prime Minister titled Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. The book released in 2013, before the 2014 General Elections, and was not exactly a glowing account of Mr Modi’s rise as Gujarat chief minister.

Mukhopadhyay has also authored articles in the print and web media that have been critical of the current dispensation, a reason why the termination doesn’t exactly surprise him. “With this government, either you are with them 150 per cent or you’re against them,” he says.

Mukhopadhyay’s company, Qualitent Research Group, which provides backroom support to TV channels, also had a contract with Lok Sabha TV to provide the channel with research support. The contract was till April 2017, but was terminated in July this year. Mukhopadhyay claims the contract was terminated without giving him any reason and the show too was “yanked off” without an explanation. “I would view the call to discontinue A Page From History in the context of the sudden termination of Qualitent’s contract with Lok Sabha TV. And I think this is a case of selective targeting,” he says.

Mukhopadhyay adds that over the past one year, there have been occasions when the channel bosses asked him to refrain from inviting certain guests as panellists on his show. He insists that he always attempted to strike a balance on his shows, inviting people from across the political spectrum.

When asked why the show was discontinued, Lok Sabha TV Chief Executive and Editor Seema Gupta stated it was a collective decision taken by the programming committee. She did not wish to go into the reasons behind the descision.

A Page From History had completed close to 290 episodes.