Former journalist Arnab Goswami was recently in news for his false claims of having covered the Gujarat riots when his ex-colleagues from NDTV said that he was lying. In the face of unending embarrassment, his team had allegedly deleted the original video of the founder of Republic TV flaunting a reporting assignment he never took.
Few days later, it emerged that NDTV was being sold to the owner of SpiceJet, Ajay Singh, man who coined the phrase ‘Abki Bar Modi Sarkar’ during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The reports of NDTV’s ownership changing hands to someone who’s been a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed significance given that the channel was often perceived to be unusually critical of the central government. Unusually because not criticising the government has become a rarity under the current BJP-led dispensation.
On Wednesday, Goswami was debating the issue of Rohingya refugees currently living in India arguing why deporting them back to Myanmar was the best option India had. To build his case further he said how some of them had alleged links to Pakistan.
It was at this point when a panelist tried to draw Goswami’s attention to a report by NDTV, when Goswami burst into laughter, which stopped only after a minute.
Responding to his panelist, Goswami said, “NDTV? What did you say? ” He was joined by BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia, who not so long ago, desperately represented Samajwadi Party in TV debates, in his non-stop laughter.
After about a minute, Goswami perhaps realised the adverse reportage on his action, he said, “I did not say a word. If you ask me why I laughed at NDTV, then tomorrow Lutyen people will write about that. They will go after me and ask why I laughed on the mentioning of NDTV. This has become their hobby these days.”
The panelist who was quoting NDTV’s report told Goswami to not laugh like a ‘fool’ but this did not have much impact on him or his BJP guest Bhatia. The panelist was only trying to highlight a fact that, according to an NDTV report, law enforcing agencies had told the channel that they could not find a single FIR against Rohingya refugees living in India.
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW FROM 3.15 MINUTES ONWARD:
It seems Goswami hasn’t forgotten how he was shamed on social media and among those who contributed to his shaming also included many of his former NDTV colleagues.
