Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami on Tuesday looked to be in greater pain as the Congress sacked its rebel leader Sachin Pilot. Pained by Pilot’s sacking, Goswami almost pleaded with Pilot to launch his own party as he lamented that the Congress had chosen to boycott his TV channels. The controversial TV anchor also alleged that Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had recently insulted senior party leaders during the CWC meeting after they expressed their displeasure on the personal attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This came days after Kavita Kaushik and Saif Ali Khan’s co-star Kubbra Sait slammed Goswami for shenanigans.
Launching his programme, Goswami said, “Sachin Pilot’s exit is an irreparable loss for the Vadra-Congress. The petty manner in which he was sidelined, the insecure manner in which he was booted out proves beyond doubt that it is the end of the road for the Vadras. Antonia Maino’s (Sonia Gandhi) party today has no mass leaders. Its greatest mass leaders are unknowns, who cannot even win an MLA election.”
He continued, “Viewers, the destruction of the Vadra-Congress has started. Now you have some antiques and some antediluvians. Like the 70-year-old (Shashi) Tharoor and (Kapil) Sibal. They will crib on Twitter a little bit. You know why? Because they are hoping that at this stage of their career, they may be called upon to replace the Vadras…If that happens, then it’s from the frying pan to the fire.”
A visibly pained Goswami then lamented that the Congress party had chosen to boycott him and his TV channels. He also wondered why the Congress had not boycotted the news agency ANI and its editor Smita Prakash.
The controversial anchor sensationally claimed, “If I were to ask today, who the heck is she (Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) to yell at the CWC meetings? Do you know I got a full lowdown? I must say that many Congress leaders came out and spoke to me after the last CWC meeting. They said that ‘you know we never felt more insulted with the manner in which Rahul (Gandhi) and Priyanka spoke to us…’ All because somebody said in the meeting, I think it was RPN (Singh) and Anand Sharma, who said that ‘don’t attack Narendra Modi personally. Apparently, the brother-sister went right royal crazy, short of abuse.”
He also gave his predictions that the Congress would be reduced to ‘under 25 seats’ across India if a national election was to be held today. In his second prediction, Goswami said that Sachin Pilot’s yet-to-be-launched political party was capable of winning more seats in Rajasthan than even the Congress. Goswami later implored Pilot to launch his own party instead of joining the BJP as is being widely speculated.
To support his argument, Goswami yelled that Pilot’s exit from the Congress had a ripple effect in Maharashtra, where former MP Priya Dutt had thrown her weight behind the former deputy chief minister of Rajasthan. Dutt, in her tweet, had written, “Another friend leaves the party both sachin and jyotirajya were colleagues & good friends unfortunately our party has lost 2 stalwart young leaders with great potential. I don’t believe being ambitious is wrong. They have worked hard through the most difficult times.”
Goswami termed Priya Dutt a senior Congress leader, but did not say that the latter had failed to win her Mumbai North Central seat in the last two general elections. In 2019, she lost to Poonam Mahajan of the BJP by a whopping 1.3 lakh votes. One of Goswami’s colleagues described Dutt as a ‘more grass-root cadre.’
Goswami likened Sonia Gandhi to ‘one of the directors of Ramsay brothers’ as he said, “Because she’s producing the horror movie. Antonia Maino is producing a horror movie and all the villains are from the family.”
Earlier, several celebrities including FIR actress Kavita Kaushik, filmmaker Anubhav Sinha and actress Kubbra Sait had slammed Goswami for his shenanigans in the recent days leading to his interrogation by the Mumbai Police.