The Supreme Court has delivered a stunning blow to Congress and career activists who wished to cast aspersions on not just the Rafale deal but also Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally. The SC today dismissed review petitions against its 2018 judgement that refused to order a probe into the Rafale deal. With this, the curtain falls on one of the most motivated and vicious campaigns launched against the Modi government that cast a shadow even on India’s national security. After the Supreme Court delivered the Rafale verdict, Sanjay Jha, the National Spokesperson of the Congress party took to Twitter to apologise to Anil Ambani in a strangely cryptic, yet arrogant tweet.
Now that the Supreme Court has given the #RafaleVerdict , I would like to publicly apologise to the Honourable Shri Anil Ambani Ji for making bogus charges against him on TV shows. Sir Ji, you are a personification of integrity, honesty and transparency.
Sir Ji, please forgive.
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) November 14, 2019
Sanjay Jha said, “Now that the Supreme Court has given the Rafale Verdict, I would like to publicly apologise to the Honourable Shri Anil Ambani Ji for making bogus charges against him on TV shows. Sir Ji, you are a personification of integrity, honesty and transparency. Sir Ji, please forgive”.
Soon, many people started mocking Sanjay Jha considering the Supreme Court had not just shut down the Rafale drama, but also rebuked Rahul Gandhi.
Proud of you Sanjay! The court gave such a rebuke to your slave master and you have the grace to make an apology to the people you falsely accused.
Take a bow!
— ϽΓΣⱤẛ∁ (@CholericCleric) November 14, 2019
Ambani be like pic.twitter.com/u20IcNOidx
— Aarohi Tripathy ?? (@aarohi_vns) November 14, 2019
Anil Ambani has proven that he is not averse to pulling up the rumour mills that peddle falsehoods against him.
In August 2018, Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence had sent a legal notice to Congress national spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill asking him to refrain from making unverified, frivolous and defamatory statements on the Rafale deal. In a ‘cease and desist’ notice addressed to Jaiveer Shergill, Reliance said that freedom of expression of politicians does not mean that they have a license to behave irresponsibly and make distorted statements to suit their political interests.
The Reliance named other Congress leaders viz Randeep Surjewala, Ashok Chavan, Sanjay Nirupam, Anugrah Narayan Singh. Oommen Chandy, Shaktisinh Gohil, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sunil Kumar Jakhar and Priyanka Chaturvedi and furthered that the company reserved the right to resort to legal recourse for the protection of their name, brand, reputation, and goodwill in case of any scurrilous statements being made against them.
The Reliance group of industries, headed by Anil Ambani had earlier too sent a Rs 1,000 crore defamation notice to Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam for making “false and baseless” allegations against the company and demanded an apology within 72 hours after the receipt of the notice. The company also demanded that Nirupam “desist from making any such statements concerning the Reliance Group without first ascertaining the facts.”
Not just that, Anil Ambani had also sued The Wire for Rs 6000 crores for their lies in the Rafale case.
Anil Ambani-led Reliance group had sued leftist propaganda website The Wire for Rs. 6,000 crore over its coverage of the Rafale deal. The case pertained to a video discussion about the Rafale deal which was published by The Wire. The video featured The Wire Founding Editor MK Venu, Jawaharlal Nehru University Associate Professor Happymon Jacob and journalist Ajai Shukla. In the Rs. 6,000 crore defamation suit, the company claimed that the programme is ‘false’. It further claims that the statements made during the discussion are “wholly incorrect and misleading, made with a deliberate pre-determined motive to harm and injure the reputation.”
It is thus entirely possible that Sanjay Jha is trying to shield himself from further action by Anil Ambani considering several Congress leaders including Jha have made several defamatory statements against Anil Ambani and the Rafale deal.
With the Supreme Court burying the baseless allegations against PM Modi, the Modi government, the Rafale deal and Amil Ambani once and for all, Sanjay Jha could be hedging his bets by issuing an apology to Anil Ambani and making it sound arrogant just to play to his audience.
However, Sanjay Jha soon tweeted a ‘clarification’:
So I believe my sardonic, scalding, and sarcastic dig at Shri Ambani Ji on the #RafaleVerdict is being deliberately misconstrued by some BJP cheerleaders masquerading as TV anchors as a real public apology. ROTFL!
Guys, this clarification will hurt. Sorry to spoil your show!
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) November 14, 2019
He claimed that his tweet was “sardonic, scalding and sarcastic dig at Shri Ambani Ji on the Rafale verdict” and that it is being deliberately twisted by “BJP cheerleaders”.
Considering the Rafale verdict was a scathing indictment of Congress lies, one certainly does wonder how Sanjay Jha could use that to take sarcastic digs at anyone connected with the Rafale deal.
One wonders if the mocking got to Sanjay Jha and he then issued this ‘clarification’. Or that when he tweeted the “sarcastic” tweet he forgot that the Supreme Court also came down hard on his master, Rahul Gandhi.
Sanjay Jha who is fondly called a ‘belly dancer’ by several netizens after he had claimed that if Nirmala Sitharaman is the Finance Minister, he is a belly dancer, however, could not catch a break. After the ‘clarification’, the mocking only got worse.
Come on, Sanjay. Don’t be coy! This is your moment to shine. As I said, we are proud of you.
— ϽΓΣⱤẛ∁ (@CholericCleric) November 14, 2019
If you have to explain that you are being sarcastic, then you aren’t sarcastic enough my friend ?
— United Memes of India ?? (@allindiamemers) November 14, 2019
Jha-tu ji ,
You know that u don’t even know how to be sarcastic .
Because that tweet of yours lacked sarcasm & it looked more like a crying child apologising.Congress has jokers in it , which can’t even make ppl laugh. ?? @JhaSanjay improve ur level btw
Ra-fail or Rafale— Desi Satire (@Desi_Satire_) November 14, 2019
While we will never know whether Sanjay Jha issued a genuine apology and then flipped later or was being sarcastic from the word-go, what we know with certainty is that Sanjay Jha should have no problem either issuing a genuine apology or making a complete fool of himself by tweeting ‘sarcastically’ when it is his party that has been rapped by the Supreme Court.
In 2014, Jha had issued an unconditional apology to BJP MP Subramanian Swamy for calling him a CIA agent and thus, Jha has had enough practice in apologising when he sticks his foot in his mouth.
