The Delhi elections have concluded and per the Exit Polls, Aam Admi Party (AAP) is sweeping the elections with a more than 50% vote share. While BJP will improve its tally according to pollsters, the wave was a pro-incumbency one, unmistakably. Amidst the Exit Polls numbers, The Wire founding editor MK Venu wrote about an insightful conversation he purportedly had with a senior Congress leader who is also a former Chief Minister of Delhi.
https://twitter.com/mkvenu1/status/1226160005369327617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
MK Venu wrote that a “very senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Delhi” told him that AAP got an additional 2% to 3% vote share simply because BJP leaders launched a personal attack against Arvind Kejriwal, AAP supremo, calling him a ‘terrorist’. He said that during his conversation with the “very senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Delhi”, he was told that this “vicious attack angered voters who have been on the fence”.
By all standards, it is an extremely enlightening conversation that The Wire co-founder wrote about. However, there is only one problem with that – none of the former Delhi Chief Ministers is alive in 2020 to have had this conversation with him.
Chaudhary Brahm Prakash Yadav
Chaudhary Brahm Prakash Yadav was the first Chief Minister of Delhi and a Congress leader. He was the CM from 1952 to 1955. He passed away in 1993.
Gurumukh Nihal Singh
Gurmukh Nihal Singh was the second Chief Minister of Delhi from 1955 to 1956 and was a Congress leader. He was the successor of Chaudhary Brahm Prakash and assumed office in 1955 just for one year, as after that States Reorganisation Act, 1956 was passed which made Delhi a Union Territory. Thus, no one was appointed the next CM of Delhi until legislative assembly elections in Delhi were held in 1993.
The date of the death of Gurumukh Nihal Singh remains unknown.
Madan Lal Khurana
Madan Lal Khurana was the CM of Delhi from 1993 to 1996. He was a senior BJP leader and passed away in 2018.
Sahib Singh Verma
Sahib Singh Verma was the Chief Minister of Delhi from 1996 to 1998. A senior BJP leader, he passed away in 2007.
Sushma Swaraj
Sushma Swaraj, a beloved parliamentarian belonged to BJP and passed away in August 2019. She was the Delhi CM only for 2 months in 1998.
Sheila Dixit
From 1998 to 2013, Congress leader Sheila Dixit was the Chief Minister of Delhi. She passed away in July 2019 at the age of 81.
Arvind Kejriwal
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi in 2015 and continues to hold the position.
As one can see, out of the 7 Chief Ministers Delhi has had, 6 of them have passed away and the only “Delhi CM” left to have a conversation with is Arvind Kejriwal who is at the moment neither a ‘senior Congress leader’ nor ‘a former CM’.
Therefore, it is safe to say that as is the habit of the propagandists at The Wire, MK Venu was boldly lying.
While it is obvious that MK Venu is a liar, it so appears that he is also not the smartest cookie in the cookie jar to have asserted that he had a conversation with a ‘Former CM who is also a very senior leader of the Congress’. It is perhaps the bane of our media industry that people who do not even know simple facts about polity and politics are today being touted as propaganda websites as ‘political analysts and commentators’.
It is worthy to note that The Wire has a shoddy reputation and is a Left propaganda website from which, such lies and worse have come to be the norm.
Back in 2010, during the Congress regime, a scandal had come to the fore where journalists, including ones like Barkha Dutt and MK Venu (who is the founding editor of The Wire where Rohini Singh now works), were heard hobnobbing with corporate lobbying Niira Radia. MK Venu was heard requesting corporate lobbyist Niira Radia to introduce a journalist named ‘Rohini Singh’ to her (lobbyist’s) circle (of politicians, businessmen, lobbyists, etc.). Radia was believed to be using journalists as brokers for securing favourable deals for her corporate clients from the UPA government. Rohini Singh is currently working with The Wire as well.
Read: Delhi Police suspects foreign funding links in Shaheen Bagh mastermind Sharjeel Imam’s bank accounts
Recently, a columnist with The Wire, Sharjeel Imam turned out to be the mastermind of Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA protests and is currently in custody for being a highly radicalised Islamist who not only wanted to break Assam and Northeast away from India but also wanted India to turn into an Islamist nation.
Update:
After facing huge criticism on Twitter for his tweet about talking to a ‘former Delhi CM’, MK Venu posted a clarification today morning. He said that it was a former Delhi Congress chief and not CM. To end all confusion, he also revealed that he had talked to Ajay Maken.
https://twitter.com/mkvenu1/status/1226351274393604098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It is very surprising that a senior journalist like Venu, who is known to be close to Congress party, will mistake Maken as a former CM of Delhi. Perhaps he always wanted Congress to rule Deli with Ajay Maken as the chief minister, and his hope was inadvertently reflected in his tweet.