Bureaucrat turned Modi-hater troll Jawahar Sircar has got a bigger platform to spread his hate, as he is getting a seat at the Rajya Sabha. The Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee has informed that the party has nominated former Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar to the Rajya Sabha. The party took to its official Twitter handle on July 24 (Saturday) to inform they are sending Sircar to the upper house on its ticket.
“We are delighted to nominate Mr. @jawharsircar in the Upper House of the Parliament. Mr. Sircar spent nearly 42 years in public service & was also the former CEO of Prasar Bharati. His invaluable contribution to public service shall help us serve our country even better!”, wrote the party as it announced its decision.
We are delighted to nominate Mr. @jawharsircar in the Upper House of the Parliament.
— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) July 24, 2021
Mr. Sircar spent nearly 42 years in public service & was also the former CEO of Prasar Bharati. His invaluable contribution to public service shall help us serve our country even better!
Interestingly, the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and the party’s newly appointed member to the Rajya Sabha, Jawhar Sircar are on the same page when it comes to their anti-Narendra Modi stance.
Reacting to his nomination, Jawhar Sircar said, “I was a bureaucrat. I am not a political person but I would work for development of the people and raise the issues concerning the masses in parliament,” he said.
Jawahar Sircar is nominated by TMC for by-election to Rajya Sabha being conducted to fill a seat vacated by former TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi. In February this year, Dinesh Trivedi had resigned from Rajya Sabha, and later joined the BJP. The by-polls are expected to be held next month.
Jawhar Sircar shares a morphed picture of PM Modi to berate him
In fact, last month, the former Prasar Bharti CEO was slammed for sharing a photoshopped image to attack PM Modi.
For the unversed, on June 7, Jawhar Sircar shared a heavily edited image of Prime Minister Modi bending forward to greet Reliance Foundation chairperson Neeta Ambani, to insinuate that he goes out of his way to be polite to ‘his friends’. This morphed image was coupled with a Tweet that read: “Wish fellow parliamentarians and others in politics also received such courtesy and bonhomie — from their permanently-scowling PM. In a mature democracy, we would know the two-way relationship, favours, transactions. Some day, history will tell us.”
This was not all, when Twitter users fact-checked Jawhar Sircar’s fake claims and revealed that the original picture was that of PM Modi acknowledging social activist Deepika Mondal, Sircar went on to hide the replies to his tweet. However, after being heavily slammed, Sircar deleted his Tweet.
Ex-CEO of Prasar Bharati edited parts of PM candidate Modi’s interview during 2014 elections
Jawhar Sircar, a chronic Modi-hater, had removed inconvenient parts of PM candidate Modi’s interview during the 2014 elections. On April 27, 2014, Doordarshan had aired a 30-minute long interview with the then Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in the runup to the Lok Sabha elections. At that point in time, Jawhar Sircar was the CEO of Prasar Bharti.
Upon the release of the interview, a controversy broke out about how chunks of the 54-minute long interview were edited out by broadcaster Prasar Bharti on the behest of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB).
Interestingly, PM Modi’s comments about Priyanka Gandhi and Congress leader Ahmed Patel during the interview had miffed the Congress party so much so that those remarks were omitted in the post-production stage. As such, the 30 minutes long ‘edited’ interview was aired bereft of his commentary on the duo.
Following a public backlash, the then Prasar Bharti CEO Jawhar Sircar had acknowledged that chunks of the interview were edited out. He had blamed the then I & B Minister Manish Tewari for failing to grant ‘operational autonomy’ to the public broadcaster. He had pointed out how not giving in to the government’s demands resulted in transfers, and punitive actions.
Jawhar Sircar slammed by employees of Prasar Bharati for casting aspersions on broadcaster’s integrity
In what appears, Jawhar Sircar, during his days at Prasar Bharati, was not the favourite of his team members either. In 2020, the employees of Prasar Bharati had condemned former CEO Jawhar Sircar’s tweet in which he questioned the integrity of the national broadcaster. A Press Release by Prasar Bharati’s employees has then said that it is unfortunate that the former CEO Jawhar Sircar, instead of standing beside the organisation he once served, insulted the organisation by disparaging it on its current stand against BBC’s deliberately falsified reportage on the Delhi riots.