The author who asked Rahul Gandhi a question at his interaction in Singapore, Prasenjit K Basu, has commented that the videos posted on @INCIndia and @OfficeOfRG were a classic case of fake news.
#EXCLUSIVE | The man who questioned Rahul Gandhi (@officeofrg), @PrasenjitKBasu, claims, Rahul dodged his question and alleges the video as Congress’ (@INCIndia) ‘fake news.’ Hearing the allegations, @jhasanjay counters Prasenjit Basu | @snehamordani | #RahulVideoWar pic.twitter.com/5Ob4XFCoNT
— News18 (@CNNnews18) March 9, 2018
In his response to a question by CNN New 18 journalist, Mr Basu said that:
What happened was I asked a very simple and factual question. Rahul Gandhi was unable to answer it. He responded with a counter question, which was almost juvenile. He asked ‘What is your hypothesis?’ Well, the question was to him. I of course had a hypothesis. I asked why was the performance poor under his family’s leadership? He didn’t answer. All of this was edited out of the video which was posted on the @INCIndia and @OfficeOfRg twitter handle, which have been posting fake news videos.
Prasenjit Basu went on to say that Rahul Gandhi had failed to answer the question posed to him, even after being give three attempts. On the second attempt, Rahul was asked a follow-up question with additional details. The moderator had then provided him with a third chance, as per Mr. Basu. He went to say that the doctored videos were meant to mislead the public.
Mr Basu. while on this matter, went on to say that the per capita GDP growth in the period of 1947 to 1989 was lower than the world average, and it was a disgrace for a country which was one of the poorest on earth. When asked if he was bullying Rahul Gandhi, he denied the same. He claimed that he allowed Rahul to answer and the moderator had thanked him for asking a succinct and to the point question.
Here is the full video of the interaction between Rahul Gandhi and Prasenjit Basu:
Please don’t ask such difficult questions to Rahul Ji, Watch When Rahul Gandhi could not answer what his family’s contribution to India is !! pic.twitter.com/x54nJpJyfJ
— Vivek Shetty (@vivekshettym) March 8, 2018
The official of the Congress party hasn’t yet deleted the “doctored video”, where flashes and scene changes are placed strategically to save Rahul Gandhi the embarrassment of not being able to answer succinctly put questions.
This is the altered video:
With political discourse hitting new lows everyday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi shows how to gracefully handle detractors and call their bluff. #RGinSingapore #IndiaAt70 pic.twitter.com/OnTJz0kzUx
— Congress (@INCIndia) March 8, 2018
While putting up this edited video, the the Congress Twitter handle hailed Rahul Gandhi for “gracefully handling detractors and calling their bluff”, without even acknowledging the nature of the video.
Of course, while the Congress party is justified to try its best to protect Rahul, surprisingly controversial journalist Sagarika Ghose also came to his defence by abusing Mr Basu.
This wasn’t the only embarrassment that Rahul Gandhi had to face in this interactive session held in Singapore. During the event, many gems emerged where Rahul Gandhi made ridiculous statements about how the Congress party used to measure the peace in Kashmir by the number of planes landing in the state and expressed his wish to connect all the MRI machines in the world.
