As part of his relentless attack against Indian businesses, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi today claimed all media houses in India are owned by Adani and Ambani. Rahul Gandhi was in Varanasi on Saturday for his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, where he alleged that the media do not talk about the poor and the farmers because they are owned by crorepatis like Adani and Ambani.
Rahul Gandhi said, the country is facing the issue of unemployment, and there are two Indias, an India of billionaires and an India of the poor. Then he went on to say that all media houses are owned by the rich, and therefore they don’t cover the issues of the poor.
Pointing towards the media contingent covering his speech, Rahul Gandhi said, ‘Look here, this media people from ANI and all other TV, look at them. PTI, ANI, India Today, Network 10, Network 12, Network 14, tell who owns them? These belong to Adani ji, Ambani ji. They are never going to show about farmers, labourers, poor. They can’t do it, because their owners have ordered them that they can’t show about the poor of India. They can show only Narendra Modi 24 hours, not the poor.’
He then claimed that there is not a single person in the crowd who benefited from GST and demonetisation, but media house like ANI never showed it.
Rahul Gandhi’s claims of the media not covering the farmers and the poor come amid non-stop coverage of the ongoing protests by Punjab farmers demanding legal guarantee of MSP. All media houses including media houses named by Rahul Gandhi like PTI, ANI, India Today, News 18 etc have been covering the farmer protests and their demands.
While Gautam Adani’s Adani group and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group own some media ventures, not all media groups mentioned by Rahul Gandhi are owned by them or other billionaires.
The PTI or Press Trust of India Ltd is actually a nonprofit company owned by a large number of Indian media houses, and not owned by any business group. PTI strongly objected to the allegations made by Rahul Gandhi on X. Responding to a video of the speech posted by the Congress party on X, PTI wrote, “Shocked to hear Rahul Gandhi say PTI is owned by Adani and Ambani. PTI is an independent, not-for-profit company. It has been jointly owned since Independence by a group of newspaper companies that derive no income from PTI’s revenue.”
Similarly, there is no evidence that Adani or Ambani owns the other news agency named by Rahul Gandhi, ANI – Asian News International.
India Today news channel is owned by TV Today Network Ltd, which in turn is a part of Living Media India Limited or the India Today Group, which was founded by Aroon Purie. TV Today Network Ltd is a listed company and almost half of it is owned by public shareholders. There is no evidence of any major shareholding by Adani and Ambani in the India Today group.
While Rahul Gandhi didn’t name NDTV, the Prannoy Roy founded media house is actually now owned by Adani Group, after AMG Media Network of Adani Group acquired the company in 2022. Similarly, while Rahul Gandhi didn’t name Network 18 – he used non-existent names like Network 10, Network 12, Network 14 – Network18 Group is actually owned by the Reliance group. Reliance Industries acquired the media conglomerate in 2014.