Former Congress party supporter and Rahul Gandhi fanboy Saket Gokhle, who joined the Trinamool Congress on Thursday, was yet again caught peddling fake news on Twitter.
On Wednesday, Saket Gokhale took to Twitter to claim that the Modi government spoke lies on the floor of Parliament. The self-proclaimed activist claimed that the government had lied about the wastage of food grains in FCI godowns, saying that there was “zero wastage” of food grains in the last five years.
Saket Gokhale posted an image of a questionnaire posed by BJP MPs Ravindra Kushwaha and Lallu Singh to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Administration to know how much food grains were rotten or wasted each year due to shortage of storage capacity in the warehouses of Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC).
Responding to the starred question, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs responded by saying that no quantity of central foodgrains stock (wheat and rice) has been wasted/rotten/spoiled due to shortage of storage space/godowns in the Food Corporation of India and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) warehouses in the country.
However, Saket Gokhale, who has a history of peddling fake news, cited a dubious report from the far-left propaganda website The Wire to claim that over 1,500 tonnes of food grains were wasted in FCI godowns during the lockdown in 2020.
https://twitter.com/SaketGokhale/status/1425344211218427911?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwIn his hurry to peddle propaganda against the Modi government, Saket Gokhale propagated fake news by mixing up public data on the wastage of food grains. Saket Gokhale put out data of total wastage in godowns (which may be due to various reasons) to claim that over 1,500 tonnes of food grains were wasted during the lockdown and misled his readers by suggesting that the Modi government was lying on the floor of parliament about food grains wastage.
However, the question posed by the two BJP MPs was not on the total wastage of food grains in the FCI godowns but regarding the wastage due to shortage of godowns or storage capacity. In response, the Modi government has provided the public data, which is availed to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.
Hence, the tweet put out by Saket Gokhale claiming that the Modi government lied in the parliament when asked about the wastage due to shortage of godown or storage capacity is not true.