In a shocking incident, a journalist was manhandled by Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi’s close aide Sandeep Singh when he was asking Priyanka her views on abrogation of Article 370. ABP Ganga reporter Nitish Pandey was blatantly abused, threatened by Singh for doing his job: asking questions.
When Priyanka denied speaking to the reporter over the issue after which Sandeep Singh started issuing threats to the reporter.
While issuing threat to Pandey, Singh menacingly said, “Suno Suno, Thok ke yahi baja dunga, marunga toh yehi gir jaoge(Listen, I will give you such a sound beating that you will collapse here).”
However, the journalist didn’t cow down from the threats issued by Sandeep and persisted with his questions to Priyanka Gandhi. The reporter was then manhandled by Singh as he continued to beseech Priyanka Gandhi to intervene and stop the hooliganism. “Right in front of you Priyanka ji, your workers are pushing away the cameras, roughing up journalists,” Pandey said.
However, as can be seen in the video, Priyanka showed no interest in rescuing the beleaguered journalist while he was being roughed up and threatened by Singh. Pandey made repeated entreaties to Priyanka to intervene but she turned a blind eye to his predicament.
On realising that his intimidation has been caught on camera which might put his political bosses in a fix, Singh tried to shift the blame on the journalist, accusing him of being a BJP paid stooge. “You have been paid by the BJP to do this,” Singh said to Pandey.
Sandeep Singh is a detractor turned Congress admirer. He had once shown black flags in a demonstration against erstwhile PM Dr Manmohan Singh and is now a political advisor to Rahul Gandhi and also writes his speeches. The former JNU student, Singh has also been travelling with Priyanka Gandhi ever since she was appointed as Congress general secretary in Uttar Pradesh. As JNU Students Union President, he was associated with AISA (All India Students Association), the students wing of the far-left Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). As per reports, he was also associated with Anna Hazare movement for Lokpal. Eventually he started writing speeches for Rahul Gandhi.