On the 8th of September 2023, a fresh controversy surrounded the Congress government in Karnataka. BJP leaders Tejasvi Surya and Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to Twitter to post a screenshot of a newspaper ad which spoke about a scheme by the Karnataka government which was meant specifically for the minority communities. It appears that the advertisement was not placed by the govt but by a private organisation called AR-Raheem Trust.
As per an advertisement attached by the minister in his tweet, a subsidy of 50% of the vehicle’s value with a maximum of 50% is being offered to religious minorities to purchase Auto Rikshwas, Taxis and Goods vehicles. The Swavalambi Sarathi Scheme was launched by Karnataka Housing and Minorities Welfare Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan last month.
Taking to X, Minister Chandrashekhar said that the scheme is meant exclusively for the non-Hindus keeping even the financially deprived Hindu communities out of it. The union minister said that it is a brazen discrimination and violation of Article 14 of the Constitution from a party that goes abroad and talks of Bharat’s constitution being under threat. He called it “State sponsored Conversion inducement”.
He called the scheme an ‘example of shameless, lazy, appeasement politics of bribing certain communities by Rahul Gandhi’s Congress in Karnataka.’
Rajeev Chandrashekhar said, “Shameless bribing of a community by using public resources meant for All Kannadigas. Brazen discrimination & violation of Art 14 of the constitution from a party that goes abroad and talks of Bharat’s constitution being under threat. State-sponsored Conversion inducement. This is the appeasement and corrupt politics of Dynasts of UPA/I.N.D.I alliance.”
On the 8th of September itself, the usual suspect, Mohammad Zubair, the co-founder of AltNews and dog-whistler-in-chief, attempted to “fact-check” Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Tejasvi Surya. It is pertinent to note here that AltNews and Mohammad Zubair are officially partnering with the Karnataka government to ‘fact-check’ news. This intimation was given by Priyank Kharge – Minister in the Karnataka government.
Union Minister @Rajeev_GoI and BJP MP @Tejasvi_Surya are misleading their followers by communalising the welfare schemes. This is ‘Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme’. A similar scheme was available under Karnataka BJP govt too. But both the BJP MPs don't want you to know!
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 8, 2023
Pic : 2 & 3… pic.twitter.com/pBYCbqZ1Hw
Mohammad Zubair made the following claims in an attempt to fact-check Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Tejasvi Surya:
- He claimed that the two leaders were communalising the scheme and that the scheme was available for SC/ST as well.
- SC/ST can get 75% or a max subsidy amount upto 4 lakhs.
- Minorities are eligible for 50% or a max subsidy amount upto 3 lakhs.
- That under the BJP there was a similar scheme and therefore, Chandrasekhar and Surya were spreading misinformation.
AltNews’ Zubair has a penchant for spreading selective facts and misinformation to drive his agenda home. Interestingly, this is exactly what he did in this case too.
In one of his tweets, Zubair said: “• Unemployed youth from SC/ST, Minority (Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsi, Buddhists) are qualified for this scheme. • SC/ST can get 75% or a max subsidy amount upto 4 lakhs. • Minorities are eligible for 50% or a max subsidy amount upto 3 lakhs”.
To make his point, Zubair attacked two screenshots detailing the eligibility criteria for this scheme. Zubair relied on these screenshots as if they were official intimations from the government, however, as it turns out, the website is a privately run and owned website which has nothing to do with the government at all.
The About Us page of ‘districtsinfo’, the site from which Zubair took the screenshots, claims that it gathers information from ‘other sources’ including Wikipedia.
This article that Zubair is using for his fact-check was published on the 19th of August 2023 – well after the Congress govt came to power in Karnataka. On that date, this website’s Twitter handle was posting Amazon ads for air fryers and induction cooktops. They regularly and almost exclusively post Amazon ads for various products – including women’s wear and shoes.
It is rather evident that by no measure if the website reliable, certainly not for “fact-checking”. The information, however, is not completely wrong.
According to the Congress government budget, this indeed was the scheme which was announced by the government. However, there was vital information that not only the random website but also Zubair left out, intentionally or not, is left to the discretion of the reader.
Here is what Mohammad Zubair left out
When one searches for information on the ‘Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme’, one reaches the official website of KMD – the Karnataka Minority Department.
On the website itself, there is specific information about the scheme which is to benefit minority communities.
The website clearly says that the applicant should belong to a religious minority community to apply for this scheme. This scheme is now live from the Minority Department as evidenced by the “apply online” active button.
Now, one can argue that since this is the Minority Department website, it would reflect information only for minorities. We checked the website of the social welfare department to see if the scheme had been made active for the SC/ST category as was announced by the Karnataka government in its budget.
On that website, no scheme called ‘Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme’ has been reflected and there is no place to apply online for it either.
When OpIndia spoke to the social welfare department, we were categorically told that the scheme could be availed only by the minority community and not by the SC/ST community.
FIR against Sudhir Chaudhary for asking ‘what about Hindus’ in Karnataka scheme: What happened, Zubair’s misleading claims, Priyank Kharge’s threat and more
— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) September 13, 2023
My reporthttps://t.co/mXgZBlJQqW
While it is true that the Karnataka government had announced this scheme in its budget for minorities and the SC/ST community, it would appear from the given information that the scheme has been launched so far only for minorities but has not yet been notified for the SC/ST community at all. It is evident that the SC/ST community can only avail benefits of the scheme after the scheme has been notified to them and so far, that does not seem to have happened.
Aaj Tak’s Sudhir Chaudhury did a show on the 12th of September where he confirmed that the head of Ambedkar Development Corporation, P Nagesh, also said that this scheme is not applicable to the SC/ST community yet and discussion to make it available to them is ongoing. He also confirmed that the notification to extend the scheme to SC/ST has not been issued by the government yet.
Therefore, while Mohammad Zubair relied on a random website busy advertising Amazon products, there is ample indications that while the Congress government in Karnataka announced that this scheme would be applicable for minorities and the SC/ST community, the government has started implementing the scheme for minorities but not the SC/ST community yet.
In another tweet, Mohammad Zubair made another misleading claim. Zubair tweeted, “There was a similar scheme under BJP govt. Here are a few old tweets by the Department of Minority @DOMGOK, “Each beneficiary will receive a 33% subsidy on vehicle value, up to a max of Rs. 2.5L under this scheme for purchasing auto rickshaw/taxi/goods vehicle””.
Zubair again smartly published selective information to ensure that the full picture was not apparent.
It is indeed accurate that a similar scheme was active under the BJP government as well. There is a 2021-2022 upload by the Minorities Department of Karnataka detailing how much subsidy was given for the purchase of vehicles up to 31st March 2022. According to the status report, there were 1,333 vehicles subsidised by the Minority Department.
However, the screenshots put up by Zubair were misleading because the BJP government had put this scheme on hold in 2022.
Here is what happened:
One of the screenshots that Zubair put up was a reply by the Department of Minority Affairs of Karnataka. The reply was dated 17th October 2022. In the reply, the department says, “Each beneficiary will receive a 33% subsidy on vehicle value, up to a maximum of Rs. 2,50,000/-, under this scheme when purchasing an auto rickshaw/taxi/goods vehicle. If the vehicle is still being paid for with a bank loan, the bank letter must be submitted. (1/1)”.
If one notices, the response by DOMGOK is numbered 1/1. If one was a real fact-checker, one would check why the tweet was numbered and if there is a second, follow up tweet that makes the picture clearer.
Zubair posted ONLY this screenshot and not the second tweet in the same response.
In the second tweet of the same response, that Mohammad Zubair seems to have deliberately left out, the Department of Minority Welfare clearly says that the scheme is “CURRENTLY INACTIVE”.
The tweets are still there on their Twitter handle.
And Direct Loans for Businesses/Enterprises. Visit https://t.co/p8TE5utXnM for more information. Tackling minorities' slums falls under 11 Municipal Corporations, which are only able to provide basic amenities. (2/2)
— Department of Minority Welfare, Govt of Karnataka (@DOMGOK) December 11, 2022
Regards.#KarnatakaMWD
Zubair put up another screenshot from December 2022.
Given that in the October response, the Department had already said that the scheme was inactive, in the December response, the department says that the KMDC “WILL IMPLEMENT” this scheme – this only goes to show that the scheme was inactive this far till that point.
It is therefore evident that Zubair first selectively used one tweet response by the KMDC deliberately leaving out the other (which said that the scheme was inactive) and used another screenshot to mislead his readers.
It is also evident that when the Congress government came to power in Karnataka in May 2023, the scheme was still inactive and therefore, it was indeed the Congress govt in Karnataka which repackaged this scheme and introduced it again in their budget. In the budget, while they announced the scheme for minorities and SC/ST, it is, as of writing this article, only being implemented for minorities and NOT for the SC/ST community.
Now, it is entirely possible that there are other similar schemes that are extended to SC/ST and OBCs as well, however, the subject is about the Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme. This particular scheme seems to not be applicable to SC/STs as claimed – at least so far.
For example, there is another scheme by the Karnataka government called Airavatha Scheme which partners with OLA and Uber to facilitate rural youth from SC/ST community to get subsidized vehicles. However, it is not the same as the Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme. While this partners with Radio Taxi companies, the Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme seems to be available to all minorities. Also, the claim was never that the Karnataka govt has no schemes for SC/ST but that the Swawalambi Sarathi Scheme is meant only for minorities.
The FIR on Aaj Tak’s Sudhir Chaudhury, Priyank Kharge, fake news, lies and Mohammad Zubair
While Zubair started spreading misleading information, Priyank Kharge, who likes to call Zubair ‘Chief’ threatened Sudhir Chaudhary with legal consequences and subsequently, an FIR was filed against Aaj Tak anchor Sudhir Choudhury for merely reporting what was glaringly evident.
Sudhir Chaudhury had done a show in which he spoke about this scheme and how it was being implemented for minorities and not Hindus. As soon as the video was out, Priyank Kharge, who has recently also made anti-Hindu statements, tweeted that Sudhir was spreading misinformation and he would take legal action against the anchor.
The anchor of @aajtak is deliberately spreading misinformation on Government schemes which was first started by BJP MPs & is being amplified by sections of media.
— Priyank Kharge / ಪ್ರಿಯಾಂಕ್ ಖರ್ಗೆ (@PriyankKharge) September 12, 2023
This is deliberate & malicious, Govt will be taking necessary legal action pic.twitter.com/nD5FuAf3nu
At 11:36 PM, Mohammad Zubair, who Priyank Kharge calls “chief’, was the first to tweet that an FIR had been filed against Sudhir Chaudhury.
FIR registered in Sheshadripuram Police station, Bengaluru against News Presenter Sudhir Choudhary and Aaj Tak.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 12, 2023
In his defence, Sudhir Chaudhury did another show where he confirmed the following:
- In the budget, Congress had indeed announced that the scheme would be available for minorities and the SC/ST communities
- The ad in the newspaper and the Congress govt’s own Karnataka website proves that the eligibility requirement for the scheme is that one should belong to the minority community.
- The applicability of the scheme for the SC/ST community has not been notified yet.
- This was confirmed to Aaj Tak by the Managing Director of the Ambedkar Development Corporation.
- Therefore, as of now, the scheme is indeed applicable ONLY for minority community.
It is pertinent to note that NONE of these facts have been tweeted by Mohammad Zubair yet.
In fact, when these facts were being articulated by Sudhir Chaudhury, this is what Zubair was tweeting:
YouTube live video of Sudhir Choudhary isn't available on Aaj Tak Channel now. Reason? 🤔 https://t.co/mFydT0CMen pic.twitter.com/y6I5OWLeBl
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) September 12, 2023
The self-proclaimed fact-checker who Priyank Kharge calls “CHIEF” and has collaborated with in an official capacity to “fact-check” information, clearly has paltry regard for facts and the truth. In this case, it is entirely possible that the Karnataka government would make good on its announcement and notify the scheme for SC/ST as well, however, at this point, it is a fact that the scheme is only applicable to the minority community. In that respect, there was no misinformation spread by Sudhir Chaudhury or other media houses, yet, the Karnataka government has proceeded to file an FIR against the anchor instead of conceding to facts.
If indeed the scheme was applicable to SC/STs and not only the Ambedkar Development Corporation (which Aaj Tak spoke to) but also the Social Welfare Department (which OpIndia spoke to) were lying, then Kharge, instead of filing an FIR, should have made public the notification which makes the scheme applicable for SC/STs as well. Failure to do that, the facts at hand, the lies and misinformation spread by Zubair and the subsequent FIR on Sudhir Chaudhury only proves that the Congress government in Karnataka is allying with a serial fake news spreader to persecute journalists who refuse to toe their line and ask pertinent questions to the Congress government.
