On 13th July, during the Hafta program, where Newslaundry discusses the most talked about topics of the world, the panellists openly mocked the people who were recently killed during West Bengal Panchayat polls. Abhinandan Sekhri, co-founder and CEO of Newslaundry, gave a bizarre theory that the murders during elections were not political murders but might have happened due to “personal enmity”. Though the episode’s content is paid, they publish a small version on YouTube that can be seen here.
At the 1:10 minute mark into the video on YouTube, Abhinandan Sekhri said, “I think it’s possible, it’s the thesis worth exploring, that if anyone has any enmity with anyone let’s wait for elections, pel denge [we will beat the person]. What else? I think that’s a very reasonable and rational Theory. What do you think.” While he completes his question, Manisha Pande says, “Bomb ke dhuein mein kuch nazar nahi aayega [nothing will be visible in bombs’ smoke]”, with a smirk on her face. Monideepa Banerjie agreed with Abhinandan and said, “Good point, you know. I mean, that’s a really good point.”
A total of 52 people have lost their lives in the violence during the Panchayat elections in West Bengal, apart from hundreds of people being injured. All the violence took place with the active support of the state govt and the state election commission, as they refused to deploy central armed forces, ignoring orders by the high court. But now Abhinandan Sekhri and others in NewsLaundy want people to believe that there was no political violence in WB during the polls, and all the murders were due to ‘personal enmity’.
Newslaundry made derogatory remarks against PM Modi
Newslaundry has a history of making bizarre comments in the past. Recently, they stooped to another low in journalism with a below-the-belt attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a 24-minute video, under their section ‘Tippani’ (comment in English), Newslaundry’s Atul Chaurasia ranted against Professor Anand Ranganathan for his comments on MK Gandhi. During the video, Chaurasia tried to draw a strange parallel between Gandhi’s celibacy experiments and PM Modi’s married life.
In this segment, Chaurasia essentially wonders why Anand Ranganathan would not use the same language for MK Gandhi (while talking about his experiments with celibacy) and PM Modi (talking about his marriage). While attempting to show that Ranganathan was somehow biased against Gandhi and favoured PM Modi, Newslaundry ended up displaying their own glaring bias by essentially comparing the two and saying that the same yardstick needs to be used while talking about the two situations – which have nothing in common – insinuating that PM Modi’s marital status was somehow equivalent or comparable to MK Gandhi sleeping naked with young girls.
His atrocious comments came in response to Prof Ranganathan’s recent video on the controversy surrounding Gita Press getting the Gandhi Award that went viral. In his statement, Prof Ranganathan said giving Gandhi Prize to Gita Press was an insult to Gita Press. Our detailed analysis of the video can be seen here.
West Bengal Panchayat Polls violence
A total of 52 people have lost their lives since the announcement of the rural panchayat elections on June 8. The violence, thanks to clashes between political party supporters, has raised concerns about the state’s security situation. The incidents of violence in West Bengal during the panchayat polls have raised concerns about the deteriorating law and order situation in West Bengal. The Calcutta High Court has already ordered the retention of central forces in the state for at least 10 days after the announcement of poll results to prevent post-poll clashes. Over 800 companies of central forces have been deployed in the state to maintain peace and security.
