Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came down heavily on the Congress Party after scores of Muslim League flags were seen during Rahul Gandhi’s nomination yesterday from Wayanad constituency in Kerala. The flags belonged to the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) which is an ally of the Congress in the United Democratic Front (UDF) and was involved in the infamous 2003 Marad Massacre in Kerala.
Calling the IUML a virus in a tweet, CM Yogi said that the Congress Party has been infected by this deadly virus.
मुस्लिम लीग एक वायरस है। एक ऐसा वायरस जिससे कोई संक्रमित हो गया तो वो बच नहीं सकता और आज तो मुख्य विपक्षी दल कांग्रेस ही इससे संक्रमित हो चुका है।
सोचिये अगर ये जीत गए तो क्या होगा ? ये वायरस पूरे देश मे फैल जाएगा।
— Chowkidar Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) April 5, 2019
He warned that the virus would spread across the country if Congress comes to power. Remembering the 1857 Freedom Revolution he compared today’s situation with the freedom revolution.
1857 के स्वतंत्रता संग्राम में मंगल पांडे के साथ पूरा देश अंग्रेजों के खिलाफ मिल कर लड़ा था, फिर ये मुस्लिम लीग का वायरस आया और ऐसा फैला कि पूरे देश का ही बंटवारा हो गया
आज फिर वही खतरा मंडरा रहा।
हरे झण्डे फिर से लहर रहे।
कांग्रेस मुस्लिम लीग वायरस से संक्रमित है, सावधान रहिये।
— Chowkidar Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) April 5, 2019
He said that the whole country had fought along with freedom fighter Mangal Pandey against the British. But the virus of Muslim League spread across the country and eventually led to its partition. The country is facing the same danger today. He asked people to be aware of the virus of the Muslim League that has already infected Congress.
The Gandhi scion has filed his nomination from the ‘safe‘ Wayanad constituency in Kerala apart from his traditional seat of Amethi.
Trouble is brewing for the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) chairperson, Prakash Ambedkar, who had stirred a controversy be threatening the Election Commission recently.
Taking cognisance of the statement made in the rally in Yavatmal district, the officials from the chief electoral officer’s (CEO) office said that a case has been registered against Ambedkar by the district collector at Digras Police station in Yavatmal district.
A case has been registered against Prakash Ambedkar under sections 503, 506, and 189 of the IPC for criminal intimidation and threat of injury to a public servant.
Earlier in the day, the additional chief electoral officer Dilip Shinde said in Mumbai, “We have sought a report from the local poll officers where Ambedkar made the alleged remark. We have also asked the officers to submit the report by today itself.” Ambedkar said he had made a general statement, but regretted that only his comment was singled out.
Addressing the rally, Ambedkar said that he would jail the EC officials for two days, for prohibiting discussion about the Pulwama attack, if voted to power. He had furthered that, we are told to not talk about Pulwama but I would like to know why we shouldn’t talk about it when the constitution permits us to say what we want.
Prakash Ambedkar, who has tied up with Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in Maharashtra, filed his nomination papers from Solapur, the district from where BJP has fielded the Lingayat spiritual leader, Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya and also from Akola Lok Sabha constituencies as a Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) nominee.
Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) is an alliance of Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM and Janata Dal(S) in Maharashtra.
This is, however, not the first time Prakash Ambedkar has meted out such threats. In a similar display of animosity, Ambedkar had in October last year, lashed out at Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, claiming that he possessed illegal weapons and also demanded his arrest under the Arms Act.
In a protest rally against the RSS in Mumbai, Ambedkar, speaking to his party workers had said that along with its chief Bhagwat, the organisation should also be booked for possessing such weapons.
Prakash, the grandson of BR Ambedkar, heads a Dalit political outfit called Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh in Maharastra and intends to contest in the upcoming elections to be held in the state. Ambedkar had also been caught threatening journalist Anand Narasimhan after his channel had exposed the role of Urban Naxals in creating unrest in the country. Agitated by this expose, Prakash Ambedkar had abused the journo and warned him of consequences once the present government loses power.
While addressing a rally in Nagpur, out-on-bail in National Herald scam, Congress President Rahul Gandhi threatened to jail Prime Minister Narendra Modi when Congress comes to power after the Lok Sabha elections.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi has threatened to jail Prime Minister Narendra Modi after elections. He said, ‘after elections, there will be an inquiry, the chowkidaar will go to jail’ while addressing a rally in Nagpur, Maharashtra. | #May23WithTimesNow
Details by @Kajal_Iyer. pic.twitter.com/p7vxiaBBp2
Rahul Gandhi continued his usual platitude about how ‘Chowkidars’ are found outside houses of Anil Ambani and not of poor people like farmers. Then, after he yelled “chowkidar chor hai” he asserted that when Congress comes to power, there will be a different ‘chowkidar’ who will initiate an inquiry. After the inquiry, the ‘chowkidar will go to jail’.
Rahul Gandhi was threatening the democratically elected Prime Minister with jail for the Rafale deal between India and the French government that has got a clean chit from the Supreme Court.
Rahul Gandhi, while continuing his tirade against the Prime Minister reinstated his family’s roots that lie in the imposition of the Emergency and that of jailing political opponents based on nothing but canards.
While Rahul Gandhi was threatening the Prime Minister, his own links with Arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari has not been answered for as the Congress party has maintained a stoic silence. Rumours have surfaced that Rahul Gandhi is attacking the Rafale deal because Eurofighter was lobbying in India against the Rafale. An ABP reporter had also alluded that Rahul Gandhi met Eurofighter representatives in Germany.
OpIndia had exposed how Christian Michel, the main accused middleman in the AgustaWestland chopper scam was also lobbying in India for the Eurofighter and against the Rafale deal. In fact, we had also exposed how Michel, in his fax to fellow middleman Guido Haschke had asserted that the then Government of India headed by Manmohan Singh had pulled Sweden back into the running because Sweden had sway over the Gandhi family because of the Bofors scam.
While Congress has maintained silence on these charges of Eurofighter lobbying and Rahul Gandhi’s links to it, the threat to jail the Prime Minister comes at a time where the deal itself has been proven to be beyond suspicion.
The Supreme Court has today stayed the High Court’s order to Associated Journals Limited(AJL) of vacating the Herald House in Delhi. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has also issued a notice to the center’s Land and Development Office on a petition of AJL against the High Court order.
Earlier, the division bench of the High Court had maintained the eviction order passed under the Public Premises Act by Centre and the Land and Development Office(LDO) against AJL, asserting that no press has been functioning on the property for at least the past 10 years and that it was being used only for commercial purposes violating the lease deed.
The order was passed by the court after the shares of AJL were transferred to the Young India company, in which Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi are shareholders.
The bench had observed that the transfer of AJL shares to Young India company was nothing but clandestine and surreptitious transaction to transfer the profitable interest to Young India Ltd. It was noticed that 99% of AJL shares transferred to Young India amounted to the beneficial interest of AJL’s property worth Rs 413.40 crore stands “surreptitiously” transferred to YI.
It is notable here that in the National Herald scam case, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Sam Pitroda, Motilal Vohra and Oscar Fernandez are accused of involvement in a massive ‘cheating and breach of trust’ in the acquisition of AJL by Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL).
Before this, in December last year, the Delhi High Court’s single bench had dismissed the plea filed by the AJL, challenging the Centre’s decision to cancel its lease and vacate the Herald House. In the eviction order passed in October last year, the Centre had stated that the Herald House’s 56-year-old lease to the AJL had expired.
Campaigning for the upcoming elections, Congress President Rahul Gandhi was in Pune to interact with the students during which he candidly admitted his love and affection for PM Modi.
In an interaction with the students in Pune, Rahul Gandhi proclaimed that he genuinely loved PM Modi and harbours no hatred or anger against him. As soon as Rahul declared his fondness for PM Modi, the crowd of students started chanting “Modi Modi” in an attempt to display their affection for PM Modi as well. The crowd was so loud with pro-Modi slogans that the host of the event had to request the people to simmer down for Rahul Gandhi to continue.
“I love Mr. Modi. I genuinely feel no hatred or anger towards him,” Rahul said. After Rahul’s declaration, a loud cheering resonated with students shouting in unison pro-Modi slogans and expressing the similar sentiment of love and affection for PM Modi as echoed by Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
This is not the first time that Rahul Gandhi has been greeted with pro-Modi slogans in his rallies. In one of his public events in Bengaluru last month, Rahul Gandhi was welcomed with pro-Modi slogans by techies after which the police had even detained some of them.
Ten years ago, this would never have been possible. If I remember correctly, it was in 2010 that the Radia tapes spilt into the public domain. For weeks, the then-nascent social media was buzzing, comment threads on internet forums were overflowing with common folks demanding that the names of big liberals in these tapes be reported by mainstream media.
Radiagate was the official end of innocence for a generation in its relationship with the media. For at least two reasons. First, for at least ten years, we knew that the world of media was shady. But we didn’t know just how deep the rot was. Radiagate officially ended the image of the journalist as having any kind of moral authority or having anything at all to do with truth or justice. The journalist was reborn in public imagination as a fixer, a go-between who works in power circles of Delhi and Mumbai, helping strike corrupt deals involving politicians and big business.
In the language of the street, a ‘Dalal’.
The second thing we realized was how mainstream media stick together to protect its members, more like a cartel. Quite the opposite of the free market of ideas, where competitors spare no opportunity to belittle each other. No, mainstream media was different. In principle, we had many “brands” which were competitors in theory, but in reality, they were all controlled by the same hand.
And that’s why no mainstream media would cover the Radia tapes. They all cooperated in maintaining a deafening silence. The big liberal names in the Radia tapes never had to explain themselves. It became a symbol of the contempt with which the zamindars of Lutyens Delhi look down on common folk.
Fast forward one decade. To the case of Agusta Patrakars.
This might exactly be the opposite of Radiagate.
The internet is here and everyone is on social media. The big liberals whose names have been taken can no longer hide. The document is up on the internet and nothing… absolutely nothing in the world can ever make it go away.
And social media will not let them forget. Ever.
They know it. Silence is futile. The stony silence that big liberals used during Radiagate is totally useless now. And I see this morning that the ones who were named have scrambled with clarifications, denials and justifications. They know that the longer they remain silent, the more guilty they will look. Within 15 hours of the story hitting all platforms. Even some newspapers have published the story.
Silence is futile. The media must own up to its ‘Agusta patrakars’.
Who changed the game? Technology changed the game. Reinforces my belief that science and technology is always the greatest servant of humanity. Without the power of the internet and the democratization of narrative, do you think the Agusta Patrakars would have been scrambling to explain themselves? Do you think newspapers would have published the story? Of course not.
In this, I would be unfair if I did not mention Arnab Goswami. Listen to him go last night:
“The truth will be printed because it must be in print. The truth must be imprinted into our nation’s memory and those in print must print the unprintable truth.”
Ouch!
Spare a thought for Arnab here. Think about the extent of the professional risk he is taking, by going up against the most powerful in the media establishment. Governments come and governments go, but the establishment stays. There is a reason nobody else in media is willing to go out so openly against the ones at the top of the profession. Even some journalists believed to be somewhat sympathetic to the right wing have taken a cautious line, sticking with the big guys in media on this, possibly not willing to risk it all and rock the boat.
Arnab broke with the rest of the media on anti-national chants at JNU. Think about how much it bothered them. He broke with them on issues of Award Wapsi and “intolerance”. He became the thorn in their side, the itch they couldn’t stop scratching. They say he is loud (and he is), they call him Commando Comic, they call him North Korean media and what not. But at least his name does not come up when talking about multi-million $$$ scams. Isn’t that better?
Again and again, the Agusta Patrakar situation reminds me of the days of Radiagate. Back in the day, they didn’t think that the internet or social media was such a big thing. Back in the day, social media was all about real people expressing their real opinions. No big money to drive narratives, no shady corporations getting paid to manipulate folks by stealing their data. Only real people. It was chaotic and sometimes unpleasant, but always real. Like life.
Now that *they* know how powerful social media can be, Big Business, Big Media and Big Liberalism have banded together to recreate on the internet the Orwellian world of mainstream media. Disagree with the global liberal ‘party line’? It’s all ‘hate speech’. Think that it is silly to see hijab as a symbol of empowerment? That’s ‘hate speech’ too.
They haven’t yet figured out a way to scrub the internet off everything they don’t want to hear. But they are working on it, in closed-door meetings with placard-carrying liberal activists who intend to smash all dissent. A shadowban, for instance, makes ideas disappear without creating a public spectacle that might attract sympathy. Very effective, one should say.
Remember that this democratization of the narrative is an invaluable gift that technology has given us. Don’t let them take it away.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday filed his nomination from Wayanad, Kerala while his sister looked on and urged Wayanad to ‘take care of her brother’. Rahul had chosen to contest from Wayanad in addition to Amethi as a ‘safe option’ considering Amethi, the Gandhi bastion, might just fall to the fiesty BJP candidate and Union Minister Smriti Irani who has been working in the constituency tirelessly despite her loss in 2014.
However, this ‘safe seat’ might throw up some new questions for Rahul Gandhi that would probably be difficult to answer. His election affidavit, which was filed by Rahul Gandhi to seal his candidature has thrown up serious questions about properties that OpIndia reported about earlier.
In his 2019 election affidavit, Rahul Gandhi lists purchase of two properties in Signature Towers II which is owned by Unitech. According to the election affidavit, Rahul Gandhi has declared that he purchased two properties in Signature Tower II, office spaces B-007 and B-008. The Affidavit says that that office space B007 was purchased for Rs. 1.65 crores and B008 was purchased for Rs. 6.27 crores.
Interestingly, the affidavit says that the properties were purchased on 1st December 2014.
Rahul Gandhi’s election affidavit 2019
Earlier, OpIndia had reported how Rahul Gandhi had purchased the same two properties in 2010. In October 2010, after the Supreme Court asked the Congress to reply to a notice regarding 2G and just weeks before the CAG report on 2G was tabled in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi had signed a deal with Unitech to buy two office units in this Unitech’s ‘Signature Tower 2’ in Gurgaon. Rahul Gandhi had paid Rs 1.44 crore and Rs 5.36 crore for B-007 & B-008 in this plush tower. The balance payment was meant to be paid upon possession of the properties.
After whistleblowers spoke to OpIndia, Republic TV had also released the documents where Rahul Gandhi had signed the purchase papers.
Source: Republic TV
The same properties, B007 and B008 which were purchased by Rahul Gandhi in October 2010, have re-appeared in the 2019 election affidavit that Rahul Gandhi has filed now, in Wayanad.
Interestingly, as we reported earlier, in Rahul Gandhi’s 2014 election affidavit, these two properties were not listed by Rahul Gandhi.
In 2014, after the properties were purchased in October 2010, Rahul Gandhi in his election affidavit had only listed the farmhouse he owns jointly with his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Rahul Gandhi’s 2014 Lok Sabha election affidavit
Unitech is infamous for its involvement in the 2G scam. In early 2008, Unitech Wireless, a subsidiary of Unitech, was granted a pan-India telecom license by the government for Rs. 1,658 crore under the infamous first-come, first-serve policy. Subsequently, it sold 67% of its shares to Telenor of Norway for Rs 6,120 crore. This placed the value of the company at Rs. 9,100 crores. The stake sale happened when the company had no other asset, therefore, it was only fair to assume that it was the value of the license it held.
Then, the CAG report blew the lid off the scam. It said that the inexpensive spectrum sale caused a loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore to the government exchequer while benefiting private entities like Unitech. It was further alleged that rules and guidelines were violated in the process which suggested a collusion between those who got the licenses and those who received it.
In our previous expose, we had written:
The timeline of the entire series of events is also interesting. In October 2009, the CBI registered a case into the alleged irregularities in the allocation of 2G spectrum. On October 8, 2010, the Supreme Court sought the then UPA government’s response to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s or CAG report on the alleged scam. In October, the same year, Rahul Gandhi purchased two commercial properties at Gurugram’s Signatures Towers-II owned by Unitech. Needless to say, this property doesn’t find a mention in his 2014 affidavit. Intriguingly, several of such deals struck with dubious, scam-ridden individuals is strategically struck to avoid the hint of it appearing in his election affidavits which is for public consumption.
Our assumption at that time was that perhaps the properties did not appear in the 2014 election affidavit because between 2010 and 2014, the properties may have been sold by Rahul Gandhi.
However, with the emergence of these properties in Rahul Gandhi’s 2019 affidavit, there are some pertinent questions that Rahul Gandhi must answer the most important one being, why the properties did not find a mention in his 2014 affidavit.
There are only two possible scenarios that would explain the inexplicable absence of these properties in his 2014 election affidavit.
Scenario 1:
The first scenario that would explain the absence of the Signature Tower properties being absent from his 2014 election affidavit is if Rahul Gandhi, after purchasing these properties in 2010 October had subsequently sold these two properties before filing his 2014 election affidavit and then repurchased it on 1st December 2014 as his 2019 affidavit now claims.
This is, of course, a far more unlikely scenario because selling a property just to purchase it later at an inflated price would make little to no business sense. In 2010, Rahul Gandhi had paid Rs 1.44 crore and Rs 5.36 crore for B-007 and B-008 in this plush tower. In his 2019 election affidavit, Rahul Gandhi says that that in 2014 office space B007 was purchased for Rs. 1.65 crores and B008 was purchased for Rs. 7.93 crores.
The price in 2010 for which there are signed agreements and the price listen in his 2019 affidavit have a substantial difference. The cost of the property in which Rahul Gandhi claims he purchased the property in 2014 is much higher than the cost that he signed up for in 2010.
Thus, it would make no sense to assert that Rahul Gandhi purchased these properties from Unitech in October 2010, then sold his properties before filing his 2014 election affidavit, and then proceeded to repurchase the same properties in December 2014 at a much-inflated price that now appears in his 2019 election affidavit.
It is also possible that the payment made for these properties were reflected as ‘advance for purchase of property’. In the 2014 affidavit, there is a Rs. 6.89 crore advance that has been divulged by Rahul Gandhi. But if the payment was made for the properties, it begs the question why Rahul Gandhi added it as an advance and not an asset where he mentions specific properties as he does for his farmhouse that he co-owns with his sister Priyanka Gandhi. Was there an effort to hide the asset considering in 2019, it is declared that the purchase was made in December 2014?
Scenario 2
The second and more likely scenario is that Rahul Gandhi did not disclose all assets in the 2014 election affidavit.
If the property was purchased in 2010, regardless of whether the entire amount was paid at the time or not, the properties should have been listed in his 2014 affidavit. That it was not, and it wouldn’t make sense for him to sell his property and months later, purchase his properties in December 2014, raises suspicion that Rahul Gandhi was not being truthful in his 2014 affidavit. Also, for it to be listed as an advance for purchase of property raises suspicion that Rahul Gandhi wanted to hide the fact that he has indeed purchased the property from 2G scam accused Unitech.
The reason of lying, if he did, would perhaps be that he was well aware that the properties were being purchased from Unitech, who were accused in the 2G scam which was perpetrated and was being investigated by his own Congress government and wanted to hide this misadventure from the public eye.
If he lied then, he is lying now too
If we assume that scenario 2 is more likely and that Rahul Gandhi perhaps lied in his 2014 election affidavit, it stands to reason that Rahul Gandhi is lying in his 2019 affidavit as well.
If we accept that Rahul Gandhi lied in his 2014 election affidavit and he did indeed purchase the 2 Unitech properties in October 2010 and failed to add it in his 2014 affidavit, then, his declaration in his 2019 election affidavit that these properties were purchased in December 2014 is also not true.
Lying or misrepresenting facts in an election affidavit is a serious offence that can get the candidate disqualified.
With these damning facts coming to the fore, one can only hope that a full and thorough inquiry is launched by the Election Commission of India into the discrepancies in the 2019 and 2014 election affidavits of Rahul Gandhi.
Lieutenant General D S Hooda, who was approached by the Congress Party to submit a report on the National Security plan has outrightly refused to have made a reference to the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act(AFSPA) in his report submitted to Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
Former Northern Army Commander Lt General Hooda was selected by the Congress to head a task force created by the Gandhi scion to prepare a national security strategy document for the party in the run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress Manifesto 2019, which was termed as “a Charter to weaken India” by Union Minister Arun Jaitley, promises to repeal the sedition laws, dilute the AFSPA and decrease the presence of Armed forced in the Kashmir valley. Lt General Hooda, however, has clarified that he did not recommend anything regarding the AFSPA in the 42-page report on national security submitted by him.
While talking to NDTV Lt General Hooda said, “There is no mention of AFSPA as far as my document is concerned, nor is there any reference to the number of troops that are required to be there in the valley. There is no reference to the AFSPA one way or the other.”
“Our political objectives in Kashmir must be clear. And from those political objectives we will draw our military strategy and as part of that strategy what needs to be done or how much troops are required to be there, all these things, I think, are subsequent steps that need to be taken”, he added.
LT General Hooda said that he was not in the favour of dilution or removal of AFSPA as it is required for the protection of the Armed forces. “I think we should not talk about dilution or removal of the AFSPA because its something that is legally required for the army to operate in that area”, he said.
Contrary to the Congress manifesto’s claims, General Hooda stated that the AFSPA is not providing enough protection to our soldiers in its present form. “It’s also no secret and I have written about on a number of occasions, it needs a review”, he said, suggesting a review of the AFSPA as he felt that the Act has been diluted post the 2016 Supreme Court judgment and is failing to provide adequate protection to our soldiers.
He gave two reasons for reviewing the Act, he said, “It should be reviewed for two important reasons first is, that it’s become a bad word and it’s a stick that human rights activists and some civil society groups are using to defame the army. I can tell you with confidence that we have an excellent human rights record.”
“Secondly, after the 2016 Supreme Court judgment on AFSPA, 700 officers went to court because the judgment has diluted the AFSPA completely. Because it talked about excessive use of force, how do you judge that? It talked about investigations can be done by any organisation, not necessarily the Army. It also said that the Army people can be tried in criminal courts. So I think the way AFSPA is today it is not providing adequate protection even to our soldiers. there are major problems with it and we seriously need to review it”.
On April 1, Dainik Jagran’s ‘fact checking’ affiliate ‘Vishvas News’ published an article titled “Fact Check: राहुल गाँधी का डांस वाला वीडियो पुलवामा अटैक वाले दिन का नहीं है” (Fact check: Rahul Gandhi’s dance video is not from the day of Pulwama attack). The same article was published in the Dainik Jagran’s print edition on April 4.
Dainik Jagran publishes misleading news
In the said ‘fact check’, Vishvas News has ‘fact-checked’ a viral image where one Kuldeep Singh had shared two screenshots of Rahul Gandhi’s dancing video, one of which was a screenshot from Congress’ official account.
Vishvas News ‘fact-checking’ viral videos
Vishvas News claims that the original poster (OP) shared multiple screenshots, including one which was from verified account of Congress, claiming Rahul Gandhi had held a rally in Valsad, Gujarat. Vishvas News relies on newspapers like Indian Express and others which had reports of Rahul Gandhi’s Valsad rally. Surprisingly, it does not check Congress’ official account which had also tweeted about Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Valsad.
Not only that, Vishvas News very conveniently does not verify the right image in the OP’s post, which was a tweet from Congress’ official handle, which showed Rahul Gandhi dancing in Valsad after the Pulwama attack. Following public outrage, Congress had deleted those tweets later.
Tweet by Congress’ official Twitter account on 14th February 2019‘Deleted tweet’ notification on Congress’ Tweet
Vishvas News not only ignores this aspect, but then goes on to ‘fact check’ another image in the OP, which was a video of Rahul Gandhi dancing from a rally in Rourkela.
While part of the post shared by the OP was indeed false and misleading, the fact that a ‘fact-checker’ chose to not report that Rahul Gandhi was indeed dancing right after Pulwama attack, and put up a misleading and confusing headline to its readers is worrisome. More so because Vishvas News is empowered by Facebook to ‘fact-check’ news and claims on the social networking platform.
Facebook had recently added five ‘fact-checkers’ to its roster which are ‘certified through a ‘non-partisan‘ International Fact-Checking Network. These were added to ‘fight spread of false news on Facebook, especially ahead of the 2019 general elections.
If such ‘independent’ fact-checkers flag news like Rahul Gandhi dancing in Valsad right after Pulwama attack as ‘fake’, even those pages or profiles on Facebook that share the genuine news could be reported for spreading ‘fake news’. One may try to argue that Rahul Gandhi was not aware of the casualties at the time of his dance, but to declare a genuine incident as ‘fake’ raises questions.
Facebook has often been accused of bias and now it is worrying when a ‘fact-checker’ on their roster to independently fact-check viral news is found indulging in spreading misleading information to confuse the readers right before the elections.
Bahujan Samaj Party leader and meat baron Haji Yakub Qureshi will be contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Meerut-Hapur seat against BJP’s sitting Member of Parliament Rajendra Agrawal.
Qureshi, who is a four-time Mayor from Meerut, had made headlines after he announced a bounty of Rs 51 crore for beheading the cartoonists of France based publication Charlie Hebdo for publishing the cartoon of Prophet Mohammad. Qureshi later announced to give the said amount to the terrorists who had barged into the office of Charlie Hebdo armed with lethal weapons and killed 12 people including 8 journalists. Qureshi was also reportedly involved in attacking environment activists who had started a movement for banning the meat plants to save the environment.
Qureshi is the owner of meat company Al Fahim Meatex Private Limited which is said to be one of the largest buffalo meat exporters in India. His meat company has recently been under the scanner of law enforcement authorities regarding certain illegalities. In the month of February this year, some parts of his meat factory were sealed by the authorities for not having the required sanction for the map of the factory. Meerut’s environment has been affected due to a large number of meat factories in the region. Addressing the problem of illegal meat factories, CM Yogi Adityanath had ordered the closing down of the illegal slaughterhouses in State soon after he became the CM in 2017.
Along with Qureshi, his children also do not seem to have any fear of the law. His son Haji Imran Qureshi was reportedly involved in grabbing the land of farmers and also giving death threats to the owners of the land. Qureshi’s daughter had also made headlines back in 2017 when she reportedly beat up the teachers and students with a hunter in Meerut Public School where her daughter was studying. The video of the incident had gone viral in which she is seen carrying a hunter with her in the school premises.
With a considerably large Muslim population in the Meerut area, Qureshi stands good chances of winning the current Lok Sabha election if he is able to consolidate the Muslim vote in his favour.
