HRD Minister Smriti Irani has often used social media to counter untruths regarding her and her ministry. Earlier this year, she had rebuked Rajdeep Sardesai for his half-baked tweets. And last year, she took on Suhasini Haider and The Hindu. Now it seems it was the turn of Bhupendra Chaubey and his channel, CNN News 18.
It started with some run-of-the-mill news show promotion tweets by CNN News 18 and Bhupendra Chaubey. CNN News 18 later deleted the tweet:
The minister chose to reply to CNN News 18’s tweet with this:
https://twitter.com/smritiirani/status/724623658845511680
CNN News 18’s original tweet suggested that Smriti Irani had spoken to Bhupendra Chaubey, which probably alarmed the minister because she had not spoken to him at all. At this stage, Bhupendra Chaueby clarified:
https://twitter.com/bhupendrachaube/status/724624011301253120
To this, Irani again tweeted:
https://twitter.com/smritiirani/status/724624562877423616
Chaubey now acknowledged that she was right on this issue. Vir Sanghvi, who conducted the interview, also tweeted something similar:
https://twitter.com/bhupendrachaube/status/724625414606344192
https://twitter.com/virsanghvi/status/724626706137530368
https://twitter.com/virsanghvi/status/724627603802476544
Possibly, soon after this exchange, CNN News 18 deleted the original tweet. Interestingly, Vir Sanghvi makes another point in his tweet, which should be noted. He says Smriti Irani refused to comment on the Government handling of JNU. This flies in the face of Chaubey’s own tweet where he claimed the minister broke her silence on the same issue:
Even the snippet of the interview which was telecast confirmed the above. On the question of commenting on this matter, the minister refused to answer saying she cannot comment on a law and order issue which is not her jurisdiction, and which is being deliberated upon in a court of law. While News 18 took down their misleading tweet, Chaubey didn’t.
And after this episode, Chaubey tweeted this:
https://twitter.com/bhupendrachaube/status/724665094643286016
Maybe its time we take up his advice?