New Delhi: A television media report in connection with the brutal Udaipur murder that quoted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi out of context has led to a full-blown political slugfest between the party and the ruling BJP.
Although the channel issued an apology later, BJP leaders continued to share clips of the programme that aired on Zee News Friday night and accused Gandhi of speaking for “terrorists”.
This came even after the Congress issued a statement saying that it was misleading and that the quote was from another speech.
In the clips, an anchor can be heard claiming that during his visit to his constituency, Wayanad, Rahul Gandhi had said that those behind the beheading of tailor Kanhaiya Lal Teli in Udaipur earlier this week “were children”.
The anchor then urges viewers to watch the clip for themselves.
“The atmosphere of the country has been created by the ruling disposition. It is not the person who made the comment, it is the PM, [the] Home Minister, [the] BJP, and [the] RSS that has created this environment in the country. This environment of anger, this environment of hatred. And frankly, the creation of this environment in the country is an anti-national act,” Gandhi can be heard saying in the clip.
“The children who did this, I mean they are also children. It’s not a good thing to do but they’ve acted in an irresponsible way,” he can be heard saying. “I don’t have any anger or hostility towards them. They’ve done a silly thing. We should leave it at that. They’re kids. I don’t think they understand the consequences of these tactics so I think we should be forgiving as far as they’re concerned.”
Congress later clarified that the speech wasn’t made over the Udaipur incident at all — what Gandhi was referring to, in fact, was the vandalism of his Wayanad office by the Students’ Federation of India, the student wing of the Communist Party of India, last week over an ongoing debate in Kerala over buffer zones — a protected zone around forests and national parks.
The Supreme Court had, on 3 June, ordered the creation of a one-km eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) around all wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. The decision has led to protests in higher ranges of the state. The Congress-led United Democratic Front has blamed the verdict on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Left Democratic Front.
Saturday afternoon — a day after the programme aired — Congress’s social media department machinery set to work, putting a communication to set the record straight.
1. @RahulGandhi की केरल में अपने दफ़्तर पर SFI कार्यकर्ताओं द्वारा हमला करने वालों को माफ़ करने की बात को Zee News उदयपुर हत्याकांड के दोषियों को माफ़ी के रुप में दिखाता है
2. इस फ़ेक न्यूज़ को भाजपा नेता सोशल मीडिया पर फैला रहे हैं
3. क़ानूनी कार्यवाही होगी, पर पहले सच देखिए pic.twitter.com/g3ZsXyu001
— Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) July 2, 2022
The same day, Congress MP and the party’s communications in-charge, Jairam Ramesh, wrote a scathing letter to BJP President JP Nadda about his leaders sharing the clip.
Shri @Jairam_Ramesh, GS Communications AICC has written to the BJP President, Shri @JPNadda strongly condemning doctored social media posts by BJP party leaders and demanding an apology failing which appropriate legal action shall be initiated. pic.twitter.com/nlSiWTl4IB
— Congress (@INCIndia) July 2, 2022
Soon after Congress’s social media clarification, Zee News issued an on-air apology and said that Gandhi had indeed been referring to SFI students.
Later Saturday night, Zee News issued another apology in the same programme where the clip was said that two people responsible for taking the clip out of context have terminated.
Among the BJP leaders who shared the clip despite the apology, however, was BJP Member of Parliament Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
“Whether Udaipur or Wayanad, the character of the Congress that stood with the gang that said ‘Afzal hum sharminda hain’ and ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ in JNU will remain the same”, said Rathore in the tweet.
उदयपुर हो या वायनाड़, जेएनयू में 'अफजल हम शर्मिंदा हैं' और 'भारत तेरे टुकड़े होंगे' गैंग के साथ खड़ी रहने वाली कांग्रेस का चरित्र वही रहता है।
जेहादी आतंक की विषबेल का बीज किसने बोया, किसने सींचा, खुद सोचिए। pic.twitter.com/cBFErZZPyb
— RajyavardhanRathore (@Ra_THORe) July 2, 2022
MP Subrat Prakash and MLA Kamlesh Saini also posted similar tweets but deleted their tweets later. Rathore’s tweet, however, remains on his Twitter timeline. Notably, the social media platform has also tagged his tweet as being out of context.
‘No Doubt Action Was Deliberate’
In his letter to Nadda, Ramesh has said that Rathore had persistently amplified the false video clip in spite of the Congress party raising red flags.
Ramesh claimed that Rathore first uploaded, then deleted and then re-uploaded the video from his Twitter handle, which leaves “no doubt that his actions were deliberate and part of your party’s strategy to defame the former INC president, to defame the Congress party and to further polarise an already sensitive, communal situation”.
The Congress MP further added, “The fact that some of your colleagues may have deleted the false reportage later after uploading and sharing is no excuse whatsoever because the damage has already been inflicted.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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