On Sunday (24th March), the Congress party released a new list announcing candidates for three Lok Sabha constituencies, two in Rajasthan and one in Maharashtra. Incidentally, the list showed that the party has replaced Sunil Sharma with Pratap Singh Khachariyawas as its Jaipur candidate. The decision comes following a backlash from its supporters over the selection of Sunil Sharma for his alleged right-wing links.
कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष श्री @kharge की अध्यक्षता में आयोजित 'केंद्रीय चुनाव समिति' ने लोकसभा चुनाव, 2024 के लिए कांग्रेस उम्मीदवारों के नाम की पांचवीं लिस्ट जारी की। pic.twitter.com/ypskx4hoDi
— Congress (@INCIndia) March 24, 2024
Earlier, following the announcement of Sharma’s candidacy from Jaipur on Congress’ ticket, Alt News cofounder Mohammed Zubair and others had lamented about his purported ‘links’ with a popular right-wing digital portal, ‘Jaipur Dialogues’.
On 23rd March, Zubair, notorious for peddling fake news, tweeted, “Wow! So Congress has given a ticket to Sunil Sharma, Partner and Director of @JaipurDialogues”. In his post, Zubair further went on to accuse the portal of peddling “hate”.
Quoting Zubair’s post, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor, also raised questions about his colleague Sunil Sharma and his party for their choice. Taking a jibe at Sharma, Tharoor claimed that it must have been a ‘sudden realisation’ for Sharma, who is alleged to be a partner of Jaipur Dialogue, to contest on a Congress ticket, which is adversarial to the portal. Tharoor continued by attaching an old tweet from Jaipur Dialogue, stating that the portal has shared several tweets targeting him.
Using the Biblical concept of “Pauline epiphany” (loosely meant for sudden realisation of something), Tharoor wrote, “He must have undergone some sort of Pauline epiphany on the road to 24 Akbar! This is just one of several dozen tweets from his handle attacking me.”
He must have undergone some sort of Pauline epiphany on the road to 24 Akbar! This is just one of several dozen tweets from his handle attacking me:https://t.co/mJy9ZyBWG0 https://t.co/3DjWW8dtbq
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 23, 2024
Is this some kind of a joke? @congress gives ticket to a man named Sunil Sharma who is an active director in Jaipur Dialogues ,an X Handle and a YouTube channel that spreads hate and does all propaganda work against Congress and @RahulGandhi… @priyankagandhi @kharge… https://t.co/rgOTrRyamp
— Sakshi Joshi (@sakshijoshii) March 23, 2024
This is Shameful. Director of Jaipur Dialogues Sunil Sharma.
— Nation Voice 🔰 (@DhruvRathee0) March 23, 2024
कांग्रेस ने ऐसे व्यक्ति को नियुक्त किया है जो समाज में नफरत फैलाता है कांग्रेस का य़ह फैसला निंदनीय है !#CongressList pic.twitter.com/P8wy04kxFk
Several Congress supporters also outraged against Sharma’s candidacy arguing that Congress should not field a ‘critic’ who support the right-wing portal, ‘Jaipur Dialogues’ while accusing it of vitiating the atmosphere. In an overdrive, Alt News’ Zubair, in a flurry of tweets, had claimed to “expose” continued ‘links’ of Sunil Sharma with Jaipur Dialogues.
Mr. Sunil Sharma claims, He is not associated with the YouTube channel and X account of @JaipurDialogues but he is still the director of 'Jaipur dialogues forum'.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) March 23, 2024
The official website of Jaipur Dialogues forum has Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube links mentioned on it.
As a… https://t.co/uFjacNVski pic.twitter.com/Snp6rhiiiq
Meanwhile, following the outrage, Sunil Sharma withdrew his candidature and addressed a presser. In the presser, he said that he had initially declined to contest elections despite repeated persuasion from senior Congress leaders from the Rajasthan unit.
In the face of relentless online hate propaganda, Sunil Sharma, Inc candidate from Jaipur, contemplates relinquishing his candidacy. Despite the adversity, he staunchly defends his right to express Nehruvian-Gandhian ideals fearlessly on any platform https://t.co/MxqrfV1IyC
— Pritesh Shah (@priteshshah_) March 24, 2024
Finally, #SunilSharma withdraws as #Congress candidate in #Jaipur for #LokSabhaElections2024.
— rajan mahan (@rajanmahan) March 24, 2024
Given his links with the controversial #JaipurDialogues platform, Sharma was facing a storm of opposition.
Regarding the persuasion, Sharma claimed that one MLA had insisted him to contest from Jaipur saying that not contesting for Congress in this dire time would mean that “you don’t love Rahul Gandhi”.
He said, “Since 2014, I have defended the Congress ideology at several forums including at occasions when I appeared on events of Jaipur Dialogue digital enterprise. He added that he has noting to do with the portal’s digital enterprise. But when people raised questions on my integrity, I was hurt and decided to withdraw my candidature”. Following his announcement, the Congress list made the confirmation of candidate replacement for Jaipur Lok Sabha seat.
