Rajdeep Sardesai recently admitted having commented unnecessarily on the Army Chief’s speech at the DRDO conference on North East region. He had initially asked if the Army Chief was a politician in a Tweet.
Is he army chief or a politician? https://t.co/Ln0m21ApjW
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) February 22, 2018
Later he realised the Army Chief’s speech had much more than just the reference about AIUDF. And then twisted back to a conciliatory tone defending the Chief. He not only corrected himself but also sought to educate all those who had criticised the army chief
When you read the entire speech by Gen Rawat, you realise that he’s mainly spoken of ‘amalgamating’ all communities in the north-east. @asadowaisi needs to read full speech next time and so do I!! #ArmyAbovePolitics
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) February 22, 2018
First spread the fake and perception.. And then act like so naive and good person. And that too asks others to follow that he himself doesn’t. And he calls him a journalist… @ARanganathan72 @muglikar_ @prasannavishy pic.twitter.com/iqBSHmFz1Z
— Kunal Jain (@mekunaljain85) February 23, 2018
We had put out a detailed article carrying the contents of Army Chief’s ‘controversial’ speech earlier. He had said the following about amalgamation of all communities in Assam even though he had mentioned AIUDF and BJP. Bipin Rawat had said the following words :
I think that the government is looking at the northeast in correct perspective and if that happens time will not be far when we will be able to amalgamate the region, ensure development and with development, we will be able to control the people of the region who are residing in this area. [..]
We have got to appreciate living with all people who are living in our region irrespective of their caste, creed, religion or sex. I think if you understand that, we can live together happily, but the best part is amalgamate the kind of people that are living in the region and then start identifying people who are trying to create trouble. We will have more trouble in segregating people, identifying people, yes some people have to be identified who are creating trouble for us, who are illegal immigrants, but as was brought out, Muslim population started coming into Assam as early as 1218 to 1236. That was the first time that Muslims entered Assam. So we have to understand that they are not late arrivers, they were the early arrivers who came concurrently with the Ahoms. Both these people have claims to the state of Assam and therefore the North East region.
Rajdeep’s Twitter timeline suggests that he managed to jump the gun before delving into the contents of the speech. He questioned if the chief’s comments had been taken out of context, which is in a way a confession of his own earlier Tweet.
Now that Rajdeep has retracted his earlier comments on Army chief Bipin Rawat, will others follow suit? We will have to wait and watch.
