Journalist Abhisar Sharma faced an incessant social media attack by members of the BJP’s troll army, who targeted him using a video of his recent election coverage, alleging that he had paid money to a villager to speak against the saffron party.
In the video, Abhisar, who had to quit his job at ABP News last year because of his perceived criticism for the Centre’s Narendra Modi government, was seen speaking to a group of village elders during his trip to eastern Uttar Pradesh. An elderly villager, a sugarcane farmer, had accused the Yogi Adityanath government of collusion with the sugar mill owners to file false cases against the farmers.
To substantiate his allegations, he had produced a newspaper clipping and handed it over to Abhisar. Towards the end of his segment, Abhisar was seen handing back the newspaper clipping to the elderly man.
No sooner did he share the video of his coverage on Twitter, several known BJP trolls began to target him, alleging that the piece of paper being handed back to the elderly man in the video was in fact money. This, they argued, was to lure the villagers to speak against the BJP.
Most of the villagers, who Abhisar interviewed for his video, were angry with the BJP even though they had voted for the saffron party in 2014.
Prominent among those, who targeted Abhisar with their vicious attack by false allegations also included a man called Vikas Pandey, followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter, and one ex-army soldier Major (retd) Surendra Poonia, who had recently joined the BJP.
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Abhisar was quick to produce the full video highlighting how the slip of paper being handed back the elderly man was the newspaper clipping that the latter had given to him during the interview. This prompted at least one member of the troll army to apologise, but other vicious trolls remained remorseless.
Friends this is the full video where its clear that a villager handed over a newspaper clipping and I handed it back to me , but trolls backed by @MODIfiedVikas have been trying to run a fake propaganda( no surprises) फर्ज़ी चौकिदारों झूठ से बचो pic.twitter.com/kTQ82xD9HM
— Abhisar Sharma (@abhisar_sharma) March 27, 2019
Abhisar has warned everyone, who had resorted to mischief in a bid to defame him, of legal action.
