Union Minister and former BJP President Nitin Gadkari appeared to have taken a dig at Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, while criticising his style of holding debates.
Speaking at Agenda Aaj Tak, Gadkari said that the Indian media only focussed on negative news to boost their TRPs. He said, “If we need to change, then both politicians and media must change..Look, there’s a problem in our society. People doing good works don’t get respect and those who are bad don’t get punished. This happens on many occasions. Today you take a vow that you will now give priority to good news. And when someone commits a gaffe, you take a call what coverage you should provide to such utterances. One politician makes a statement and you will hold debate between 8 and 9 in the evening and ask ‘country wants to know’.”
India TV channels, claiming to be in the business of 24×7 news business, usually tend to hold debates in the evening. Republic’s Arnab Goswami too organises his own high-decibel show, The Debate, with nearly a dozen-odd guests. He is credited with popularising the term ‘Nation wants to know’ when he worked with Times Now as its editor-in-chief. He now has a dedicated programme on Republic called Nation Wants To Know.
By ‘country wants to know,’ Gadkari was clearly making a direct reference to Goswami, who’s accused of promoting the BJP’s agenda through his channel. His channel, Republic, was founded with the financial support of BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar last year.
Gadkari also said that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath calling Lord Hanuman a ‘Dalit’ was a no-ball. In fact, his indirect dig at Goswami came while replying to a question on Adityanath’s comments on Lord Hanuman. He, however, blamed the media for cherry picking only the sensational elements of Adityanath’s speech and not paying attention to other meaningful points.
He said, “You (media) don’t see good things, you only pick on who said what on Hanuman. If someone has thrown a no-ball, then you will only show that all through the day.”
No-ball, which is a cricketing terminology, and gives advantage to the opposite side, which gets the opportunity to play an additional ball and score more runs.
Campaigning during the Rajasthan assembly elections, Adityanath had said, “Hanuman was a tribal, a forest dweller, a Dalit and was deprived.”