Times Now editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami, evoked sharp reactions for his channel’s allegedly ‘biased’ coverage on Salman Khan’s rape comments on Tuesday.
Many questioned his ‘sanity’ on social media while others felt that the man who considered himself as the ‘voice of the nation’ was simply chasing TRP on an otherwise dull day in office.
However, a night before, Goswami’s questionable role as moderator on his popular prime time show Newshour too had under scrutiny.
On Monday night, one of the topics dominating Goswami’s debate was Raghuram Rajan’s decision to move on and not seek the second term as the RBI Governor.
The development had taken place over the weekend, when the charismatic governor had send an all-staff email in the federal bank.
Rajan’s message was made widely available through the RBI website.
But, on Monday night, Goswami felt that in his wisdom the RBI Governor, who enjoyed international fame and respect, had acted like an amateurish ‘intern.’
Goswami accused Rajan of having “leaked” the news of his departure to allegedly strike a deal with the government.
Goswami thundered, “You’re an RBI governor. You do not behave like an intern in a private sector company that you want to resign and put pressure on your employer, so you leak the story of your resignation on a Saturday evening at 5 O’clock without having put in your resignation, hoping that your colleagues and the rest of the world will build pressure on your behalf over a Sunday and that your employer in turn will be forced to take back your resignation and give you an exalted position by a Monday.”
The RBI never leaked the news of him not accepting second term. It was in public domain through the official website of the RBI.
The anchor, as observed by Scoopwhoop website, was in no mood to stop here.
He continued, “Where in the world does this happen? Why did Raghuram Rajan try to do this amateurish, childish, questionable act on Saturday evening?”
Often accused of being soft on BJP, the anchor soon made it clear why he was giving a public dressing down to an otherwise fairly successful RBI governor.
Wanting Rajan to own “all that went wrong between 2007 and 2014,” Goswami said, “he (Rajan) is somebody who held various appointments during the UPA tenure.”
And this wasn’t enough. He blamed Rajan and not Arun Jaitley, who hold finance ministry, for Mallya-gate.
He asked, “Could Raghuram Rajan have done something earlier to stop Mallya-gate from happening? Who in the world benefits from high interest rates? The only people who benefit from high interest rates is not the middle-class Indian wanting to take an EMI; it is the really rich FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) investing in India. So was Raghuram Rajan serving the interests of the FIIs?”
