Punya Prasun Bajpai who had shot to the limelight for all the wrong reasons, has been exposed yet again. This time around, he did a story in which he claimed that a female peasant, Chandramani Kaushik who interacted with Prime Minister Modi last month through the NaMo app, was compelled to state that her income had doubled. However, the Chhattisgarh woman has denied the report and stated that the ABP News report misrepresented her version. This story was even shared by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who blindly relied on the fake story without verifying it and noticing the obvious irregularities and manipulations in the report.
Punya Prasun Bajpai, in his story, claims that one of their correspondents got in touch with Kaushik. In the news report, the correspondent asks Kaushik if her income had doubled from the farming of dhaan (rice). To this, Chandramani simply says ‘No’. ABP News then claims that Chandramani also ‘revealed’ that a team from Delhi had categorically instructed her about how to speak with the prime minister and reply ‘yes’ if the prime minister asks whether her income has doubled. However, what Chandramani stated was merely that she had been asked if she would be able to speak to PM Modi. This is a massive manipulation even by the standards of the Indian mainstream media.
PM जी अपनी मन की बात सुनाते हैं यह तो सभी जानते थे। आज यह मालूम पड़ रहा है कि वह सिर्फ अपने ही मन की बात सुनना भी चाहते हैं । pic.twitter.com/dEqvklqtRR
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 9, 2018
Thereafter, the Sarpanch of the village, Parshuram Bhoyar comes on screen and claims that a team had come and instructed farmers about what to say. He further alleged that Chandramani was specifically instructed to say whatever she said and that her claims of double income were not ‘visible’. Then, ABP News asks whether the government is lying.
However, ABP News and Prasun Bajpai stood exposed after MyNation, a news website, interviewed Chandramani and found that her version had been twisted by the ‘senior’ journalist. In her video statement to MyNation, Kaushik has rubbished the claims of her having been forced to reply in a particular manner and has stated that it is the journalists who have twisted her words. The news story keeps harping about how, judging by the state of affairs, Kaushik’s income could not have doubled through rice cultivation. This spin off was debunked by Kaushik who stated, “I had told the Prime Minister about doubling my income by processing the pulp of Sitafal. They are talking about agriculture, but I had said that pulp processing led to the doubling of my income. I had told the Prime Minister that earlier, while Sitafal cultivation got us around 50 rupees, after training, we get double the amount by processing pulp. I was talking about pulp only and not rice.” From this it is clear that Prasun Bajpai and ABP News gave a very sharp spin to the entire story. While Kaushik had expressly stated before Prime Minister Modi that rice cultivation was unprofitable and her income doubled after turning to fruit and pulp processing, the correspondent asks her if her income had doubled from rice cultivation, to which she obviously replies no. And then the entire Lutyens’ cabal got together in attacking the Modi government.
It seems that this interview is part of the leftist narrative around the poor state of farmers under the Modi government. Kaushik’s story definitely came as a death blow for the cabal, and therefore, Punya Prasun Bajpai came to its rescue. As it turns out, Bajpai who had earlier ‘set up’ a krantikati interview with Arvind Kejriwal is now revolutionising the fake news industry in close coordination with the anti-Modi establishment.