The official Twitter handle of Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Sevadal launched a sexist attack against union minister Smriti Irani by posting a fake screenshot of a TV news report. The verified Twitter account posted an image which looks like a screengrab from a Hindi News Channel, and it reports that Smriti Irani has said she will commit suicide if prime minister Narendra Modi loses. Later the tweet was deleted.
With the image, the Uttarakhand Congress Sevadal added ‘इतनी मोहब्बत, इस मोहब्बत का क्या नाम दूं’ (so much love, how should I name this love). On just casual inspection of the screenshot it becomes clear that it was digitally morphed, and the text was added to a screenshot from an ABP news clip to create the image. Moreover, there is not any report about Smriti Irani making such a comment in any new media. There is also a spelling error in the fake image, as the word लूंगी has been spelt as लुंगी.
Therefore, it is clear that no TV news channel telecast any such news, and this fake image created to attack the union minister with a sexist comment, who is giving a tough fight to Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. It seems a screengrab taken from ABP News when they had covered a press conference addressed by Smriti Irani following OpIndia expose on Rahul Gandhi’s dubious land deals. Although no news channel logo is visible on the image, from the graphics it is clear that it is based on a screenshot from ABP News clip.
This is not the first time Smriti Irani has been subjected to such sexist attack, she has faced such attacks regularly over the last few years. Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam has been at the forefront at it, who has repeated the offence several times. Several leaders of Congress or their allies have made crass and sexist comments to attack Irani in the past.
