India Today’s left-leaning digital portal, ‘The Lallantop’, and its founder Saurabh Dwivedi have earned notoriety for spreading misinformation against the BJP. Even during their ground reporting, ‘The Lallantop’ avoids hearing anything favourable about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Recently, Lallantop peddled lies about reaching out to the suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma to hide his cowardice with lies. Additionally, it is pertinent to note that ‘The Lallantop’ frequently garners traffic through rag stories and sex-related topics. The platform has 2.96 crore subscribers on YouTube.
Saurabh Dwivedi spread falsehoods about reaching out to Nupur Sharma
On the 25th of May 2024, Saurabh Dwivedi of Lallantop spun a sinister web of lies to defend himself against allegations that he was too scared to fact-check what former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma said. The allegations because of which she has been getting death and rape threats by Jihadis for the past 2 years.
Notably, in response to a question on his show, ‘Neta Nagri’, Saurabh Dwivedi made three specific claims to prove his relentless pursuit of the truth. He cited three specific incidents to claim that he had reached out to Nupur Sharma to offer her the platform to put forth her version and therefore, he should not be blamed for not fact-checking what Nupur Sharma said.
However, OpIndia reached out to Nupur Sharma regarding his claims. Speaking to OpIndia, Nupur Sharma confirmed that she met Saurabh Dwivedi on the 31st of May 2022 at the press conference, as she did with several other journalists who were present there as well. She does not remember Saurabh asking her for an interview.
While Nupur Sharma doubts that Dwivedi ever asked her, it is important to note that on the 31st of May, there was no embargo on Nupur from talking to the media. She gave a sound-byte to the media and sat down with OpIndia for a 1-hour interview on the 31st of May. It, therefore, seems counter-intuitive for Saurabh to claim that on the 31st of May, Nupur had refused to speak to Lallantop.
Regarding the second claim, Nupur Sharma told OpIndia that she was actually surprised to see Saurabh Dwivedi and his wife present at a party hosted by an IAS couple in April 2023. It was Nupur Sharma who approached Dwivedi. They had a conversation where Nupur told him how difficult it was for her to live her life in silence, given her active career before Alt-News co-founder Zubair painted a target on her back. Nupur recalls Dwivedi having no reaction, per se. She does not remember if a passing reference was made by Dwivedi about getting her on his show since it was a long time ago.
Nupur Sharma also confirmed to OpIndia that Dwivedi’s third claim of approaching her again to appear on his show after Dr. Anand Ranganathan’s video went viral was an outright lie. Nupur Sharma told OpIndia that in the past month after Dr. Ranganathan’s video went viral, neither Saurabh Dwivedi nor his Lallantop team has contacted her for a show.
Saurabh Dwivedi clearly lied to justify his cowardice. He has not contacted Nupur Sharma personally even once in 2 years to get her version on record. He has tried hard to pass off casual interactions as formal requests for an interview – casual interactions in which Nupur Sharma does not even remember Dwivedi extending the offer.
Lallantop sold ‘s*x’ even during Coronavirus
Let’s first talk about Hashmi Dawakhana. The Lallantop came into the limelight by accurately measuring Hitler’s pen*s. One of the videos that caught the attention of young people who were stuck at home was – ‘The desire to increase s*x power led to the coronavirus’. There is no need to delve into the details of this video, but it should certainly have been given to the scientists who were working on developing a vaccine against this virus at the international level.
If this is not possible, then at least the YouTube link of this video should have been given to North Korea, because the people who can do a Ph.D on Hitler’s private parts even after so many years of his death, are not the ones who are suffering from Corona. They would have definitely prepared an antidote for this. Not only this, The Lallantop, taking special care of its audience and fact-checking its meaning, was also seen proving that mustard oil cannot protect against coronavirus. This is the audience that has been devoting its entire 1.5 GB of cheap internet daily at the feet of either TikTok or The Lallantop.
Bra, panties, sex, genitals, semen… what else in Lallantop?
Incidentally, Lallantop had fact-checked a report which was published by a comedy-satire portal, Fauxy, however, in an interesting turn of events, Lallantop which claims to champion ‘fact-checking’, called the satirical article an ‘authentic’ report.
Hailing itself as the last messiah of journalism, Dwivedi once sat with his journalism guru Rajdeep Sardesai and openly peddled lies and inflated numbers in front of the entire public on the NPR-NRC policies of the Central Government.
After getting caught, Lallantop shamelessly didn’t remove the video from YouTube but secretly wrote about this ‘mistake’ in its description. Additionally, it has shoddy track record of fact-checking MEMEs and ‘fake news’. By portraying some actors filming a shoot as victims of Muslim persecution, The Lallantop and their team produced extensive secular literature. A year-old news story, which police investigations had debunked as fake months earlier, was republished on the day of Holi to attempt to portray Holi as a festival of semen and gain some cheap popularity.
Lallantop published erotic news even during the budget
The Lallantop, which claims to be very concerned about women’s issues, expressed concern during Holi about whether it is a festival of semen or not. Similarly, during a budget session, it was troubled why Priyanka Chopra’s dress didn’t slip. Priyanka Chopra attended the 62nd Grammy Awards with her husband Nick Jonas wearing a dress that troubled The Lallantop. Subsequently, the portal published a comprehensive report on the matter.
Saurabh Dwivedi wants BJP supporters to use a ‘condom’ so they don’t procreate, deleted tweet after facing massive outrage
In January 2020, Saurabh Dwivedi inadvertently exposed his prejudice against the ruling BJP by mocking and abusing the party’s supporters. Taking to Twitter, he expressed his hatred for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In a hurry to abuse and mock BJP, Dwivedi posted an edited infographic of the advertisement of British condom brand Durex on the micro-blogging site Twitter (now X) and mocked that BJP supporters should use condoms to stop the procreation of more supporters.
In a tweet, Dwivedi asked his followers whether he should trend the edited infographic or not. The edited infographic of the Durex advertisement read, “For those people who are still supporting BJP. Please use this we don’t want any more like you in the world”.
It is pertinent to note that while Saurabh Dwivedi openly aired his hatred for BJP and its supporters, his father Ravikant Dwivedi himself contested on a BJP ticket twice and lost.
