Business Standard on Friday republished an article by columnist Andy Mukherjee which first appeared on Bloomberg with an interesting twist. The media outlet somehow managed to blame Narendra Modi for the dip in fortunes of Colgate, the toothpaste brand.
Business Standard declared that Colgate had not managed to register a double digit growth even once ‘under’ Narendra Modi, making it seem as if the Prime Minister of India is the marketing manager of the toothpaste brand. The tweet has since then been deleted.
The article in question argued for an income-support initiative by the government owing the Coronavirus pandemic. But even the author admits that Colgate’s fortunes are dependent on multiple factors, including competition from Ramdev’s Patanjali.
Mukherjee wrote, “For the full year, the U.S. multinational’s India unit recorded a little over 7% jump in net sales, but since that came atop a 1.2% increase in the previous 12 months, the two-year average works out to less than 5%. This is a company that only once expanded annual revenue by less than 13% in the nine years before 2015.”
“But then came the challenge to its dominance from a yoga guru and his homegrown ayurveda company, followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bizarre ban on 86% of cash in 2016, a banking crisis, a brutal economic slowdown, and finally two waves of Covid-19. Colgate hasn’t once managed double-digit growth in the last six years under Modi,” he adds.
The columnist’s bias against the ruling dispensation is evident during the initial paragraphs where he presents a doomsday scenario of the Coronavirus pandemic, predicting 1.2 million deaths by end-August; a figure that is not supported by any legitimate data.
Forecasters were initially predicting 1.6 million deaths by the beginning of August, then The Lancet relied on those predictions to predict 1 million deaths since even they did not find the predictions plausible. Eventually, Mukherjee seems to have decided upon 1.2 million deaths since he appears to find the 1 million figure by August exaggerated in itself. Some had also predicted 5 million deaths by August.
People on social media mocked Business Standard for its own twist in the tale wherein they chose to blame Narendra Modi for the business fortunes of Colgate.
How is that related to Modi? Did modi asked not to use tooth paste or modi wave cleaned all teeth of billion people.
— BanyanTree (@Sparrowlov) May 21, 2021
Business standard fallen for sure. https://t.co/Fr4yDSIHuK
@narendramodi must either immediately step down from the post of #Colgate CEO or resign as the prime minister of India. Democracy in danger. @bsindia Kudos to your journalism. Big fan ! https://t.co/vCNs6bFWCV
— Vivek (@ItsWeWake) May 21, 2021
Fascist regime of Mudi have broken the teeth of all opposition. Toothpaste manufacturers haven't seen growth. Where isbhumanity? Where is UN? Why doesn't @StateDept @USAmbIndia intervene like @RahulGandhi asked?@vispikaikobad @DalrympleWill @saliltripathi @anniegowen https://t.co/FvG1BIkXXh
— mAndhata (@Mamdhata) May 21, 2021
Some wondered whether people had stopped brushing their teeth in protest.
Did people stop brushing their teeth in protest? https://t.co/pFbFZ1oDlj
— Sree 🌻 (@readncrochet) May 21, 2021
Others credited Patanjali and other brands for the development.
most of the People using #pathanjali n #dabar toothpaste that's y .. https://t.co/TFSv4w4prI
— vijayshankar (@mvijayshankar) May 21, 2021
Congratulations to Sri @yogrishiramdev and his @PypAyurved which has given a tough competition to foreign brands of FMCG. https://t.co/Mk3alPmrDJ
— V Ramanathan (@vraman16) May 21, 2021
Stopped using that & switched to dantachoornam 😌 https://t.co/UmHdgCKTle
— Piyu 👩⚕️ 🇮🇳 (@Piyu_Nair) May 21, 2021
It does appear bizarre that the Prime Minister would be blamed for a single brand not recording enough growth, as per media. Furthermore, it is likely that people are switching to other brands that they find better. To blame the Prime Minister in such a scenario is inexplicable to say the very least.
