On May 18, Dainik Bhaskar and The Wire, two Congress-friendly media houses, used their platforms to show as if the central government is sitting idle and doing nothing to manage the Covid-19 situation. The idea behind the reports they published was based on the “fact” that ten union ministers did not “help” any individual by amplifying any SOS call that was made on social media. They did a study of their Twitter accounts between May 1 and May 15 to come to the conclusion that they were only praising the government and doing nothing to help in Covid-19 management.
As OpIndia showed how these ministers were busy in institutional-approach-based help rather than individual-approach-based help during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is important to see how Congress leaders and their friendly media houses’ owners performed during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a fact that Congress leaders have nothing to do other than sitting at home and tweeting against the government as they are in opposition! So, we went through some of the most famous MPs accounts, and this is what we found.
Sonia Gandhi
The most beloved Congress leader Sonia Gandhi is not even on social media networks. She could have easily joined the social media platform and use her influence to help individuals. But instead, she decided to sit ideal and write letters to PM and ministers to do what they already had done days ago. On May 20, she suggested providing free education to orphans who lost parents to the Covid-19 pandemic, which came out to be nothing more than a PR gimmick.
She flew out of the country with her son for a medical check-up that could have been done in-country. Anyway, as she is not on Twitter, it is hard to access if she has done anything. After all, according to The Wire and Dainik Bhaskar, Twitter is, in fact, the best way to access how MPs, MLAs, and leaders have performed! This means, no Twitter account, no performance.
Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi is active on Twitter, but between May 1 and May 20, he did not post any tweet amplifying the SOS call for anyone. We also tried to find if he had done anything for his constituency between these days. We checked his Wayanad account (RGWayanadOffice), sadly there was no tweet amplifying any SOS call from that account too.
We also tried his Facebook accounts, but there was not even a single post amplifying any SOS call. We even search for “Rahul Gandhi Wayanad Covid” on Google, but there was not even a single report in the last 20 days that may show that he has done anything for the people of his constituency.
We were not even looking for what he has done for the people of the country as he does not hold any position that makes him answerable. But at least active work in his constituency was expected during the pandemic. If he had done anything, it would have made it to the social media platforms, or some news report would have published. But there was nothing. There were tweets tagging him for help, but there was no response.
Priyanka Gandhi
We checked her Twitter profile between May 1 and May 20. There was not even a single tweet that can be decoded as an SOS call amplification or response. There was no retweet of any SOS call to amplify it so that her 3.6 million followers can see someone who needs help. Here also, we checked her other social media accounts as well. We did find two posts, but those were only promoting the work Congress workers were doing in UP, not herself. There was no amplification of any SOS call on her Facebook account as well.
Though she did help Shahid Siddiqui by giving a Remsidivir injection, it was actually originally procured for Rahul Gandhi, who was Covid-19 positive. As it was lying “unused” because Rahul Gandhi didn’t need it, she gave it to Siddiqui. This was the time where people were paying in black for the injection, and she was keeping it at home. That too happened on April 26 and not between May 1 and May 20 which was apparently the criteria set by the Congress-friendly media houses to assess the leaders.
Siddharth Varadarajan
The head of The Wire, who got the report published after following Dainik Bhaskar’s suite, is active on Twitter. He has hundreds of Tweet from his account since May 1, and there were only two Retweets that can be called as amplifying the SOS call.
One was for seeking help for verified accounts of The Wire and Scroll, and the other was regarding the oxygen crisis in Delhi Hospitals. Not even a single tweet or RT for an individual from the general masses to save someone’s life. Does the life of a general citizen of India does not matter in the eyes of the owner of The Wire? Why didn’t he amplified a single tweet in 20 days for the masses, it may be questioned.
Instead of tweeting propaganda reports or bragging for collecting over 16 crores since 2015, he could have helped a few people by RTing them. BTW the tweet about money Wire collected/made is pinned tweet on his profile.
Arvind Sharma
Similarly, Dainik Bhaskar news editor Arvind Sharma has also not done much in terms of amplifying Covid-19 SOS calls. On May 2, he posted a call for Remdesivir injection needed in Rajasthan. Apart from that, he has not tweeted or retweeted any such appeals, while mostly posting news articles from his newspaper.
These examples show that while the media questioned union ministers for not amplifying Covid-19 SOS calls, they didn’t use the same criteria to evaluate opposition leaders, or even themselves. While ministers were helping the victims en-mass using the institutional mechanism they have access to, opposition leaders can surely use their social media accounts with lakhs of followers to help Covid-19 victims. But all they did was attack the Modi govt, and the leftist media do not see any problem in that.
