Rajdeep Sardesai deletes casteist tweet after major public backlash

On Saturday, soon after the conviction of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav in connection with the fodder scam, journalist Shekhar Gupta and whoever handles Lalu Yadav’s twitter handle, started peddling a dangerous narrative.

We reported how journalist Shekhar Gupta, most known for his coup story floated a conspiracy theory questioning caste dynamics in the fodder scam verdict where, Lalu was convicted but an ‘upper caste’ Jagannath Mishra was acquitted.

This angle was immediately welcomed with open arms by the RJD and even Lalu’s twitter handle put out a tweet to play the caste card.

Controversial journalist Rajdeep Sardesai soon decided that he didn’t want to be left behind, and went ahead to put out a casteist tweet of his own, by using the appointment of Himachal CM Jairam Thakur as a possible ‘pretext’:

As seen above, Rajddep decided to insinuate that of the total 11 chief minister of the BJP, only two are from a so called lower caste, which meant that political India was still a far way away from giving due representation to those belonging to the so called lower castes.

Such a conclusion by Rajdeep was slightly inexplicable, considering the current President and Prime Minister of India are a Dalit and OBC respectively. Irrespective of that, it was also unfortunate to see a so called senior journalist, gauging a Chief Minister appointee simply based on his caste, and not based on metrics like governance record, political experience and public history.

Rajdeep as a result managed to irk various twitter users who didn’t hold back in their responses:

https://twitter.com/shilpitewari/status/944899888088616960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/ShefVaidya/status/944880549717426177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/AskAnshul/status/945001189988384768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/rajudasonline/status/944958799600689157?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/Ranveer186/status/944946024325439488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/bhaiyyajispeaks/status/944875507174146049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Twitter users also pointed out Rajdeep’s blatant hypocrisy on this matter:

https://twitter.com/iAnkurSingh/status/944874345456734209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/944877781397028864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Such a sustained backlash seems to have got to Rajdeep and he has now deleted this tweet of his:

Checked using Twitter advanced search

But even though the tweet was deleted, Rajdeep didn’t care to explain his reasons for doing so, which might lead people to believe that he was subtly trying to cover up for his ‘error in judgement’, without letting anybody know.

OpIndia Staff: Staff reporter at OpIndia