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Congress leader calls up journalist’s boss to complain about his ‘leanings’, claims journalist

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Congress leader calls up journalist’s boss to complain about his ‘leanings’, claims journalist

The last few days has seen powerful people attempting to stifle the freedom of the media, at least a section of it that attempted to differ from the usual mainstream narrative. Just a couple of days back an FIR was filed against Zee News for reporting on the Dhulagarh riots, and now a Congress leader took upon himself to complain about a journalist, whom he thought was not “friendly” to the party.

India Today journalist Shiv Aroor found himself on the wrong side of things after Congress leader and party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala called up the management of TV Today to complain about his supposed (political) “leanings”.

A little bit of a background. An abusive Twitter user Swati Chaturvedi has written a book about BJP using social media to target critics in an abusive way. India Today, like other media channels, decided to give her airtime. Shiv Aroor anchored a show that debated the allegations made in the book:



Although Twitter user Suresh Nakhua was invited as someone whom Swati Chaturvedi, an abusive troll herself, had termed an abusive troll, Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi, who thinks Barkha Dutt is a pro-Narendra Modi, claimed that the panel had two BJP representatives. She later said that it was not a concern and sounded happy at the end of the show.

But appears that Congress was not happy that a show that should have simply maligned the BJP and its supporters, gave the opportunity to people to defend themselves. Senior leader of the party Randeep Surjewala appears to have called top management of the news channel to complain about Shiv Aroor.

This came to light after Shiv Aroor sent out the following tweets (now deleted) last night after the show was over and aired:

So Congress could not tolerate the fact that unlike other channels, say NDTV, India Today and Shiv Aroor tried to give the opportunity to those maligned by a book to defend themselves. This is not the media Congress is comfortable with, as the default “leaning” a journalist should have is pro-Congress.

Though Shiv Aroor proceeded to delete all these tweets – voluntarily or under pressure is not clear – this has exposed the intolerance Congress has to dissenting views and also their idea about how media should behave. After all when Priyanka Chaturvedi had declared that she had no problem with the choice of guests, why did Surjewala have to step in? Or did the orders came from Congress high command?

What’s more important is the fact that a systematic effort is being made by the Congress aligned establishment to stifle and discredit all those voices that go against their agenda. The book that Shiv Aroor was talking about in his show is a part of this Congress establishment thuggery. Earlier, another India Today journalist, Gaurav Sawant’s family was targeted by Congress aligned trolls. On another occasion, he too was forced to delete some tweets that did not align with Congress establishment’s views.

However, such arm-twisting and attack on dissent is never considered worthy of outrage or concern when the Congress indulges in this. Compare this with the chatter that was generated when Firstpost deleted an article critical of Arun Jaitley.

Nidhi Razdan and abusive journalist Swati Chaturvedi caught lying on NDTV (video)

OpIndia Staff
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Nidhi Razdan and abusive journalist Swati Chaturvedi caught lying on NDTV (video)

By now everyone is quite familiar with the deplorable reporting standards on NDTV. We have repeatedly exposed NDTV for their false and propaganda based news reports. NDTV’s anchor Nidhi Razdan too is a professional when it comes to lying.

Earlier, we had shown a video of Nidhi Razdan where she was caught off-guard while desperately tying to spin an argument, on her show Left, Right & Centre:

On Tuesday night, Nidhi Razdan was once again spotted parrotting a lie. It was a debate in which the focus was a “book” written by noted abusive social media troll turned lying journalist Swati Chaturvedi. The book talked about how according to Chaturvedi, BJP was directing and coordinating attacks on other social media users and establishments.

At one point of time, the debate veered to the issue of the Boycott Snapdeal movement, and it was alleged by Nidhi Razdan, working in tandem with Chaturvedi, that this was a movement backed by the BJP or even the Government. Razdan, at this point, chose to read out a passage from the book written by Chaturvedi, which quoted Defence Minister Parrikar as saying:

“….people have shown their power. An actor made this mistake….some of our people are very smart, there was a team working on this, they were telling people you order and return..”

The focus was on the word “our”, as Nidhi Razdan used this word to argue that it was either Parrikar’s or BJP’s or the Government’s team which was running this movement.

This video of Parrikar’s speech had originally surfaced in July 2016, and even then, a few media houses and journalists had used the words “our” team to create a furore. Even back then, we had written a detailed article with the original video and a transcript of the same, which showed that at no place in the video did Parrikar use the word “our” or any such synonym. He only stated that he was aware of a team working on this issue:

When this actor did this, the company for which he was advertising, was an online trading company. Many people broke relations with that their company. Many people quit from the lease, and some over smart people ordered goods and sent them back. There was a team, which I know, which was working on this. They were telling people you order and return it, this company should learn a lesson. That to pull out his advertisement.

Yet, Swati Chaturvedi, deliberately used a false quote in her book, Nidhi Razdan parroted the same, and then based a line of questioning exactly on this false quote. Firstly, can anyone trust a repeated liar like Swati Chaturvedi who has been called out multiple times with hard evidence? Secondly is this the standard of journalism practised by NDTV and Nidhi Razdan where they use false quotes to run their TV show?

It gets worse for Razdan, as in August itself, Barkha Dutt, Razdan’s senior, had clearly admitted on her show, that the defence minister never used the word “our” or “my” but referred to “a” team. We have pieced both the videos together:

Does this mean 2 of NDTV’s leading anchors have 2 different versions of the truth? Is this in line with another NDTV anchor who once famously said: “news is always subjective”? Or is it line with another top NDTV anchor who infamously sliced and diced an interview video, to present a picture which he wanted to? Can anyone take NDTV seriously anymore?

New questions emerge over why AAP removed ‘donors list’ from its website

Hemant Bijapurkar
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New questions emerge over why AAP removed ‘donors list’ from its website

The Aam Aadmi Party has been under fire recently over mysteriously choosing to remove the list of donors from its website in June this year. The list was never put back despite the website declaring to the contrary.

First a Chanda Bandi agitation was launched by some former AAP supporters, then the Guru of AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare wrote an emotional letter regarding the same issue. Now the issue has been joined by former AAP leader Yogendra Yadav. He has challenged AAP for a debate over the issue and is claiming that the party is running away from debate.

It was speculated that AAP was receiving more funds from “traditional” sources than public donation and hence it removed the list, but now new details are emerging. The party had received an IT notice, and now this is being seen as one of the reasons why the party removed the donors list.

According to documents accessed by Times Now, there were many donations over 20,000 rupees that were documented on AAP’s website, but the party had not reported those to the Election Commission of India (ECI), which is required as per existing rules.

The Income Tax departments sent summons to the party at least four times this year. Along with the summons, the IT department also attached the list of all the donations which were under IT scanner. But instead of providing the information, AAP removed the details of donations from their website!

Screenshot of AAP's websitee
Almost seven months have passed, but it still says “coming soon”.

AAP has been claiming that these were “inadvertent errors”. The party further boasts that it receives just 8% of its donations in cash thereby hinting that they have nothing to hide.



If these were merely inadvertent errors, why even after almost 7 months now, the errors have not been corrected and the list is not back on the website? Furthermore, former party insider Yogendra Yadav claims that these errors were repeated:


If AAP has nothing to hide by taking funds via digital means, why did the party not respond to the IT department even after 4 summons it received? Why did the party fail to notify the ECI about the donations above 20,000 rupees it had claimed to receive on its website? Were all those donations put up on the website bogus, so as to just make people believe about AAP’s transparency while the party was actually receiving funds from other sources? These questions remain unanswered as of now.

Sunderlal Patwa – journey of the man who helped build the BJP in Madhya Pradesh

Amit Kelkar
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Sunderlal Patwa – journey of the man who helped build the BJP in Madhya Pradesh

Sunderlal Patwa, the two-time Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister passed away today after a heart attack.

Patwa was amongst the first generation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who tasted power as the Congress party weakened in the aftermath of the 1975 Emergency. Like many others in this generation, Patwa learnt the ropes of running a government that hard way. This generation often criticized Congress leaders for lack of probity in personal and public life, but often fell short of the high standards set while in opposition, finding it tough to change the institutional political set up so tightly controlled by Congress since 1947.

Yet, Sunderlal Patwa and many of his generation were instrumental in creating an alternative to the Congress. In Patwa’s travails as Chief Minister, BJP found the organizational strength in Madhya Pradesh to build a strong counter to the Congress party. In Patwa’s successes and failures lay the foundations of the spectacular electoral run BJP has had in Madhya Pradesh since 1989 in Lok Sabha elections and later in the Assembly elections. Patwa, like his many Jan Sangh and BJP peers, was one of the architects of the modern day BJP, which is equipped to confidently govern learning from the experiences of men like Patwa.

Born in 1924 in Kukdeshwar, a small town in the North West corner of MP in Mandsaur district, Patwa was part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh through 1940s. He joined the Jan Sangh in 1951 when it was established as a political party, and continued holding various positions in the set up till 1977. He was first elected to the MP assembly in 1957 and won three terms. In 1977, when the Janata Party came to power in the center and in various states deposing Congress, Patwa was included in the Working Committee of this multi-party coalition. He briefly served as the CM for a month in 1980, after Virendra Saklecha, another Mandsaur district leader, resigned from the post due to infighting within various Janata factions.

Patwa’s first term was cut short and President’s rule imposed after Janata coalition fell through in Delhi. Congress then returned to power in June 1980 and Patwa became the leader of the opposition in the assembly. It took ten years for the BJP to come back to power in Bhopal, and Patwa was sworn in as the first BJP CM of the state in March 1990.

This was an extremely turbulent political period for much of North India. The Mandal-Mandir politics was at its peak while the economic growth stuttered. Patwa brought much of the same approach to the office what Janata Party had done in Delhi in 1977. He started off by identifying administrative constituencies which were close to the institutional Congress set up and started dismantling them all at once with a missionary zeal.

In the first year of his rule, Patwa transferred nearly 50,000 government employees across the state. MP was then the largest state in India – Chhatisgarh was yet to be carved out – and widespread geographic movement at such a large scale created a lot of resentment in administrative circles. The previous Congress regimes under Arjun Singh, Motilal Vora, and Shyama Charan Shukla had all been notorious for running a transfer-posting industry. In a politically charged environment, where government employees were used to manage their own postings, this move almost immediately backfired on Patwa, with the administrative machinery coming to a grinding halt in many districts.

Unfazed, Patwa continued with his agenda and took up the mantle of cleaning up the encroachments in large cities in MP. He found a committed deputy in Babulal Gaur, then Law Minister and later to be the MP CM in the post-Patwa era. The duo proceeded to act on illegal encroachments in all large cities, especially focusing on Indore and Bhopal where the BJP had tasted its initial spectacular Lok Sabha success. Gaur was dubbed as Bulldozerlal by the local media and Madhu Dandavate, then Union Minister, apparently remarked on one of his MP visits that Gaur had made MP worse than Turkman Gate – a reference to the demolitions carried out in Delhi during the Emergency period.

Patwa was also accused of moving away from his characteristic soft and simple lifestyle when he organized a grand function for his father’s death anniversary. This function was attended by most state ministers and Patwa even managed to get the then Prime Minister VP Singh. India Today published a memorable picture of Patwa driving Singh personally in an open top vintage car to allege impropriety on part of Patwa. He also battled local BJP leaders who accused him of being too close to RSS ideology and being a remote control of the Sangh. In a surprise move, Patwa shot a long letter to a local newspaper Swadesh, otherwise friendly to the BJP, and made a counter accusation of the newspaper begging for government ads.

Amidst such factional wars and pressure from Congress directly in assembly and indirectly through the state government employees, Patwa continued to be on shaky grounds for much of his 33 month CM term. These controversies took the sheen away from what was his biggest achievement – clearing large MP cities of ghettos which had become nerve centers of communal riots.

From 1987 until 1993, several MP cities witnessed continuous rioting, violence, and communal strife. Many cities used to be under curfew for extended periods of time disrupting day to day life. The situation was especially bad in Indore in 1988 and 1989. As CM, Patwa asked Rakesh Asthana, the then Superintendant of Police (SP), Indore to deal with the rioters with a strong had. One of the key protagonists of rioting in Indore was Bala Beg, a local leader in the ghetto of Bombay Bazar. Asthana with the support of Patwa, worked hard to rid Indore of this ghettoization and bringing calm and peace to the city. Asthana who will take over as the next chief of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), is said to have been appointed to the top intelligence body by PM Narasimha Rao on behest of Patwa himself.

Patwa faced a second dismissal in the wake of rioting after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. President’s Rule was again imposed in the state and it continued for a year. During this period, BJP lost out on some of the goodwill from the 1990 assembly election, and Digvijay Singh stormed in power as the Congress CM.

Patwa, after being out of political reckoning for a while, decided to contest the 1997 by-poll to the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat, vacated by Kamal Nath’s wife so that he could get reelected as a Member of Parliament after his name was cleared in a hawala case. Patwa defeated Kamal Nath in his stronghold, the only time BJP has won this Lok Sabha constituency since 1951. However, Patwa failed to retain this seat in 1998 Lok Sabha election, losing to Nath and then moved to the nearby Hoshangabad seat in 1999 to be elected as a Member of Parliament for a second time.

Patwa was made a Cabinet minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He held various portfolios in this government – Rural Development (12 months), Chemicals and Fertilizers (2 months), and Mines (10 months). However, through this tenure, Patwa could not adjust to the Delhi bureaucracy and was his working style was criticized as heavy handed. Frequent portfolio changes did not help, and amidst rumours that Vajpayee was about to drop him as a non-performing minister in 2001, Patwa chose to resign himself on health grounds before the September 2001 Cabinet reshuffle.

He then returned to MP, where BJP was rebuilding itself as Digvijay Singh continued his second term as the CM. He decided to stay away from day to day politics, even as BJP won the 2003 assembly election. Babulal Gaur, once seen as a Patwa protégé, was appointed the Chief Minister after replacing Uma Bharti subsequently. Patwa however never made the lost ground, and decided to retreat quietly from the political scene.

As a party patriarch, he continued to meet the local cadre and be involved in discussions and debates on public issues. As late as a week before his death, Patwa had met local BJP leaders to accept a memorandum on demands of village heads.

Sunderlal Patwa will probably never find a space in the pantheon of indispensable BJP leaders when the party history is written. But his contribution to the party in building MP as a strong fortress is significant. Patwa took upon himself several blemishes and fronted many lapses as BJP learnt to transition from an opposition party to a ruling one. His personal battles, rooted in a hard, uncompromising Sangh ideology opened the path for a more pragmatic, political face for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.

As in his long political life, Patwa remains a quintessential party man in his death.

Mob chanting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ burnt my home: Dhulagarh riots victim

OpIndia Staff
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Mob chanting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ burnt my home: Dhulagarh riots victim

What happened in the Howrah district of West Bengal, especially in the Dhulagarh region, has been a closely guarded secret by the state government. This was enabled by silence of many celebrity journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai, who maligned people talking about riots instead of questioning the state government over the law and order situation.

Now the media house where Rajdeep Sardesai works, TV Today has come up with reports that corroborate what many social media users have been saying – parts of West Bengal instead saw communal riots with the Hindu community largely bearing the brunt of the violence.

A special report filed by an India Today correspondent talks to victims of the riots. These victims confirm that the state administration was unable to protect them. In fact, the state police have been accused of being a silent spectator while the rioters burnt and looted their property.

The riots had started around December 12 after Eid-e-Milad-Un-Nabi celebrations but the media failed to report about it. India Today correspondent found an entire colony that was deserted after the residents fled the rampaging rioters. The families have still not returned; some took shelters at a local temple, while others came back to pick a few things they could find undamaged.

The report also quotes a victim claiming that she heard chants of “Pakistan Zindabad” from the mob that looted her home. Valuables like jewellery, cash, electronics have either been looted or burnt by the rioters. The state government has announced compensation of 35,000 rupees to the victims, who find it totally inadequate given the losses they have suffered.

It should be noted that Zee News was among the first one to report on the riots, because of which an FIR was filed against them. India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai too had rejected Zee News reports, but now his now channel’s reports confirm communal riots.

Perhaps the only escape route now remaining is a group of apologists masquerading as human rights activists visiting the area and submitting a “fact finding report” that blames obscure Hindu organisations for creating an environment that triggered violent reactions from Muslim mobs.

This journalist wanted cashless society, now curses Modi for proposing the same

OpIndia Staff
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This journalist wanted cashless society, now curses Modi for proposing the same

Columnist and journalist Mihir Sharma, who has often been caught on Twitter spreading lies, these days is busy telling the world how the demonetisation move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and almost everything about it such as the move towards being a cashless economy, is a disaster.

However, he had to face an embarrassing situation when one of his old articles, where he proposed a move towards cashless economy, was thrown back at him. In the article published in July this year, Mihir Sharma had made an argument in favour of cashless economy.

In fact, the article starts with “Black Money”, so the need to move towards cashless economy was linked with fighting black money by the same Mihir Sharma who is now pontificating that linking cashless economy with fighting black money is being ‘too clever by half’.

And the last line of his article was:

“The best way to eliminate black money is to get rid of the money.”

Well, Modi did exactly that. He “got rid” of the money by making you deposit old notes in the banks!

But since Modi did it, virtue signalling demands that you must oppose and mock it. So Mihir Sharma has been happily doing that. He has been writing articles like ‘India’s great rupee fail’ (which was fact-checked by one of our readers) and ‘Message to Modi: Do no more harm’. But Twitter is a place where happiness of likes of Sharma gets punctured too often.

Columnist and Economist Rupa Subramanya was the first one to point out this u-turn by Sharma:


Red faced, Mihir Sharma, who should now be comfortable with his lies and hypocrisies being exposed on Twitter, tried to justify his earlier stand:


So his problem is a policy being “forced” down. He is a great liberal who doesn’t want the state to force people to change their habits. Such a noble thought. Only that another Twitter user, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, reminded him of another of his old articles where he had written:

“It doesn’t matter if implementing it is unfair, or difficult. Our hideously smug, stratified society cannot be allowed to endure as it is. It is a blemish on the modern world.”

That was in reference to affirmative actions like reservations. So does Mihir Sharma think that existence of corruption and black money is not a blemish on the modern world? Does black money or corruption not create an unequal society where certain sections are robbed of their rights? Why should corruption be not treated as urgently as any other social problem? Why should the society continue to endure this problem?

Answer is simple. Because Narendra Modi is trying to solve the problem. Therefore people like Mihir Sharma will not support, even if it means going back on their own suggested solutions and approach. They will rather be part of the problem.

Mamata Govt files FIR against Zee News reporters for covering Dhulagarh riots: Sudhir Chaudhary

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Mamata Govt files FIR against Zee News reporters for covering Dhulagarh riots: Sudhir Chaudhary

In what might be a ‘real’ attack against press freedom, in an announcement made on Twitter, the senior editor and business head of Zee News, Sudhir Chaudhary revealed that the Government of West Bengal had filed an FIR against him and Zee News reporter Pooja Mehta for covering the Dhulagarh Riots, which largely went unnoticed by a large section of the media and eminent mediapersons as part of their ‘selective outrage policy‘.


Not just did the Mamata government file an FIR, it did so under non-bailable sections, Sudhir Chaudhary claimed. He further commented about the FIR, saying a democratically elected government was trying to stifle all those voices that go against its wishes.



This appears to be in series of events that have been orchestrated to completely black out the details of what transpired in Dhulagarh and nearby areas. Earlier the BJP party delegate was not allowed to enter the riot torn area by the Howrah police.

This is what transpired in Dhulagarh, as described here:

On 13th December Muslims brought out a procession complete with loudspeakers blaring Hindi film music on 13 December to celebrate Eid-e-Milad (the birthday of Prophet Mohammed), which actually fell on 12 December and was a public holiday. On 13 December, Hindus at Dhulagarh village, like in the rest of the country, were observing Margashirsha Purnima. Hindus at the village requested those in the procession to lower the volume of the loudspeaker since the music was interfering with some rituals. This incensed a section of those in the procession and they started attacking Hindu homes and shops. According to local people, the attackers were non-local Muslims. Hindu houses and shops were looted and then set ablaze while police who reached the village were attacked by bombs and prevented from stopping the rioters.

Now it will be interesting to see what would the reaction of the the Editors Guild of India be. Just recently the body of top journalists had drawn the conclusion that the token 1 day token ban on NDTV for giving away security locations during the Pathankot attack was reminiscent of the Emergency days. So surely an FIR using non-bailable offences, which might lead to media persons actually going to jail just like during the emergency, might warrant some form of a protest from the Guild?

Also what needs to be seen is that how does the whole intolerance brigade react to the situation and would people now return the Banga Bibhushan award which the West Bengal government gives to personalities from various fields.

This is the Zee News report, for which the FIR is reported to have been filed:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2R_f3_onps]

Mohammad Shami, Mohammad Kaif, Barkha Dutt, and political correctness

OpIndia Staff
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Mohammad Shami, Mohammad Kaif, Barkha Dutt, and political correctness

Mohammed Shami may have troubled many batsmen in his career through his swing and speed, but on 23rd December, Shami himself became a victim of religious bigotry and pseudo-liberal swing. The ace-pacer posted a photo on his Facebook page in which his wife was wearing a sleeveless gown.

This was enough for religious fanatics to abuse Shami, demean his wife, and remind him morality of Islam which he must have followed being a Muslim:

Snapshot of comments from Shami’s facebook wall

Shami is not the first victim of religious bigotry. In 2005, a cleric issued a fatwa against Sania Mirza for wearing short skirts and revealing tops on the international tennis circuit. He said that Islam does not allow women to wear skirts, shorts, and sleeveless tops in public.

The comments on Shami’s Facebook page made similar arguments, but political correctness of media made sure that the ensuing outrage, which took place only after another cricketer Mohammad Kaif joined the debate, steered clear of mentioning this aspect.

Just like it was a “Truck” that killed 9 people in Berlin, this time, it was “social media” which trolled Shami. It was not religious fanaticism, but internet trolling; it was not extremism or bigotry, but some stupid people intruding personal life of a celebrity.

Controversial NDTV journalist Barkha Dutt had this to say:


We have seen how Barkha was all over the place when a robbery attempt in a Delhi School was converted into an “attack on Christians”. We have seen how Barkha takes no time to lump any abrasive behaviour with “Right Wing” or “Hindutva Extremists”, but this time she was quite restrained.

The same Barkha, who discusses patriarchy during Karwa-Chauth, couldn’t smell patriarchy or misogyny in those Facebook replies to Shami’s picture. Take a look at her earlier reactions:


This double standard and hypocrisy is the reason why many people across the globe have started disliking the term “liberal”, even though this should have been an aspiration. Selective shielding and selective shaming not only abet crime, but it also creates discontent.

In the middle of all this, Twitter user Raju Das poked Barkha in NDTV style. An agitated Barkha couldn’t tolerate the spin; the same spin which NDTV tries with others:


Amidst all these interactions, the reply of Kaif to Barkha came as a googly. The question here is did Kaif write this ‘awareness and acceptance’ thing for Barkha or did he write it for those who abused Shami? It actually fits both the cases:


But Barkha Dutt wasn’t done yet. A random social media account tweeted a news story about a diktat issued by Hindu group Bajrang Dal, coming up with a dress code for women. The account tried to draw an equivalence between Shami’s case and this story. Barkha Dutt wasted no time in sharing this tweet and asked all those who stood up against the bigotry shown towards Shami, to take up this issue too:


But there was a hitch. For people to take up this issue, they would have travel back in time to May 2010, because the Bajrang Dal story was from 2010!!

A random account posts an old news to juxtapose it with a current news, just to soften the impact of the current news, and Barkha Dutt plays along! Why did a random account pick up a random story which was 6 and a half years old? Why was this story picked up exactly when religious bigots (from another religion) attacked Shami? Why did Barkha Dutt share this tweet and try to draw a false equivalence? Perhaps, to shield radical Islamic bigots.

Hilarious! Congress spokesperson accuses Barkha Dutt of trying to save Narendra Modi

OpIndia Staff
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Hilarious! Congress spokesperson accuses Barkha Dutt of trying to save Narendra Modi

News channel NDTV and its controversial journalist Barkha Dutt are often alleged to be close to the Congress party and its leaders, so when a Congress spokesperson attacks an NDTV journalist alleging bias against the party, it sounds hilariously absurd.

The same happened earlier today on Twitter when social-media-user-turned-Congress-spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi accused Barkha Dutt of ‘making a valiant attempt to save Prime Minister Narendra Modi from being investigated in the Sahara and Birla diaries’.

Priyanka was most probably referring to Barkha’s tweets where she argued that Sheila Dixit – Congress leader and party’s Chief Ministerial candidate in the upcoming UP assembly elections – was being made a scapegoat by the Congress, for Dixit’s name also features in the documents Rahul Gandhi claims as a proof of Narendra Modi accepting bribe.

It should be noted that Supreme Court has found those documents unreliable and refused to accept them as credible proof warranting further investigation. However, Rahul Gandhi has been repeating his allegations in election rallies. In absence of legal support, what Congress needs is media support that repeats Rahul Gandhi’s charges without cross questioning the same.

Perhaps Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi trusted NDTV to play that role, but was saddened to see Barkha Dutt taking a different, though not opposite, line. Priyanka, though, specifically mentioned and praised NDTV’s Ravish Kumar for doing what the party wanted.

So essentially the grouse against Barkha Dutt was not about ‘saving’ Narendra Modi from investigations – because courts, not media, will decide if further investigations need to be undertaken after fresh evidences, if any – but it was about not helping Rahul Gandhi.

Barkha didn’t look amused with such allegations where a colleague was being praised more than her for helping the Congress party. She tagged the official Twitter handle of the Congress in her response, an act that was virtually termed ‘childish’ by Priyanka Chaturvedi.

But was it a real fight? Are two friends turning foes? Not many on Twitter thought so:


Rahul Gandhi’s jibe of ‘Modi govt working for rich industrialists’ boomerangs

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Rahul Gandhi’s jibe of ‘Modi govt working for rich industrialists’ boomerangs

Back in December 2014 Rahul Gandhi came out with a grand attack on the Modi Government accusing it of only working for 3-4 corporate houses. Taking his accusations of the Modi government favoring corporates a step further, this December Rahul Gandhi attacked Modi personally accusing him of taking bribes from Sahara and Birla groups during his tenure as the Gujarat CM.

On Sahara and Birla, Rahul Gandhi was merely repeating what former AAP leader Prashant Bhushan had earlier alleged. Supreme Court had found Bhshan’s allegations weak and the court commented that anyone in the world could be accused of corruption if proofs like Sahara or Birla ‘diaries’ are deemed credible.

Now Rahul Gandhi’s charges of Modi government working for a few corporate houses is also turning out to be an embarrassment. The BJP has put out documents in the public that shows loans to the tune of ₹ 36.5 lakh crores being ‘waived off’ during UPA’s tenure.

Party also stated that the ₹ 72,000 crore loan owed by Gautam Adani and ₹ 1.13 lakh crores worth of loans to Ambani were also provided during the UPA tenure. Incidentally there also have been reports of Mukesh Ambani stating, ‘Congress to ab apni dukaan hai’, which was revealed in Radia tapes.



The BJP also talked about Manmohan Singh’s 2011 statement about steps needing to be taken to help private sector entities if they get into difficulties, which was issued in the background of Kingfisher’s financial woes. On top of it, back in 2012  SBI, which already had an exposure of about ₹ 1400 crores towards Kingfisher, chose to provide a further ₹ 1500 cr in a fresh bailout. Rahul Gandhi had often termed that it was BJP that helped Vijay Mallya.

Apart from these, the nexus between DLF and Robert Vadra was alleged back in 2012. Interestingly what isn’t part of the common public discourse is the claim that the DLF-Gandhi family link actually began during Rajiv Gandhi’s time when Robert Vadra was nowhere in the picture. This Rajiv-DLF link has been written about in the autobiography of the DLF owner KP Singh.

Rahul Gandhi’s jibes about Ambani and Adani also have been found to be just rhetoric as these businessmen grew when Congress was in power. In September this year, we had published a fact check which debunked the theory of Ambani and Adani getting preferential treatment after Modi came to power.

Besides this, there also has been embarrassment for Rahul Gandhi and the Congress Party after it was reported that Rahul Gandhi himself had used a Sahara owned vehicle while campaigning in UP.


Looks like Rahul Gandhi will have to work on fresh set of charges.

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