A video of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait admonishing a female colleague of Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami has gone viral on social media. In the viral video, Tikait could be seen lashing out at the female representative of Republic TV for allegedly touching the farmer leader inappropriately.
An angry Tikait could be seen yelling at the Republic TV representative, “You touch me, You touch me physically. This is inappropriate. Get lost from here.”
The woman from Republic TV denied touching Tikait inappropriately.
Tikait found plenty of supports from netizens, who applauded him for showing Republic TV its place. One wrote, “One user wrote, “When @republic was shown their correct place by @RakeshTikaitBKU Ji Well done sir ji, these Modi stooges should be taught a lesson.” Another commented, “@republic is a third class channel, so irritating voice, doing physical touch… Shee no moral values.”
Please RETWEET and Expose this @republic Bharat, reached all new low level. @RakeshTikaitBKU we are with you.
Jai Hind
???????? pic.twitter.com/1qqIs3Z5Vv— Sushil Meena (@sushilnirbhed) December 3, 2021
किसान नेता @RakeshTikaitBKU के साथ तथाकथित रिपोर्टर के इस वीडियो पर यक़ीन करना मुश्किल हो रहा है।
क्या ये पत्रकारिता है ?
शर्मनाक। pic.twitter.com/UfR7WtCpyy— Vinod Kapri (@vinodkapri) December 2, 2021
The ‘reporter’ in question was one Anju Nirwan, who took to Twitter to accuse Tikait of arrogance. According to her, Tikait was not a farmer leader particularly after he allegedly ill-treated a ‘female reporter.’
घमंड में चूर #RakeshTikait से जब मैंने बात करने की कोशिश की तो उन्होंने मेरे साथ बत्तमीजी की और वहां मौजूद सभी लोगों को भड़काया..क्या ऐसा होता है किसान नेता? जो सैकड़ों की भीड़ के साथ महिला रिपोर्ट के साथ बदसलूकी करता है!!@Republic_Bharat pic.twitter.com/04CuO94DKc
— anjunirwan (@anjn) December 1, 2021
Not too long ago, another video of Tikait refusing to speak to a representative from Arnab Goswami’s channel had gone viral.
Farmer leader @RakeshTikaitBKU refuses to reply to Godi Media @republic ???????????????? pic.twitter.com/uMZTMSFoBe
— ???? rundhati 2.0 | ਕਿਸਾਨਾਂ ਦੇ ਨਾਲ (@Polytikles) November 27, 2021
Republic TV had courted huge controversy in the past after one of its female representatives accused one A Singh of harassing one of his female colleagues then. The broadcasting watchdog NBSA, now renamed as NBDSA, had found the channel guilty in 2018 of branding an innocent man thug, lewd, cheap, vulgar, sexist pervert on its show on 9 January the same year. Goswami had launched a blistering attack against A Singh by wrongly accusing of harassing one of his reporters, Shivani Gupta, who was covering a rally, called by Dalit activist and MLA, Jignesh Mevani.
Singh’s wife, Pratishtha Singh, also a regular contributor to Janta Ka Reporter, had approached the broadcasting watchdog, which ruled in her favour and directed Republic TV to broadcast an on-air apology on 7 September at 9 pm. The channel was also given an option to air the full-screen apology on 14 September if it failed to do so on 7 September.
Goswami had later severed his TV channel’s ties with the NBSA to form his own parallel TV watchdog.