Tushar Damgude was an unheard name to the Indian public till yesterday, with the arrest of five Urban Naxals by the Maharashtra police his name began circulating on the internet. Tushar Damgude had filed the FIR with the Maharashtra police on the basis of which the crackdown on the alleged Urban Naxals had been initiated. The names of the arrested are Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonzales and Arun Ferreira. A Marathi writer who loves to take on the Left-wingers on Facebook, Tushar has over 13,500 followers in his account and he uses his account to target the top most line of command in the left wing network. After the arrests Tushar had given some interviews to Marathi news channels in which he spoke about the reasons behind filing the FIR and attacked the cabal. The over eager and defender of the cabal, Rajdeep Sardesai jumped into the fray of interviewing Tushar and exposing him or so he would have thought.
In the India Today TV program which was anchored by Rajdeep Sardesai, his colleague Pankaj Khelkar stood alongside Tushar Damgude while Rajdeep Sardesai shouted questions after questions in his ears. Tushar Damgude stood calmly and tried to answer the questions posed before him with ease and confidence something which angered the liberal Rajdeep Sardesai to a great extent. Rajdeep visibly lost his cool, asking Tushar for proofs of him being present at the Elgar Parishad event where the alleged objectionable speeches and plotting to kill Prime Minister Modi had been formed. Rajdeep lost his cool more than once during the interview and started playing a judge on national television. Waving a bundle of pages which according to Rajdeep Sardesai were the Facebook posts of Tushar, he claimed that Tushar had been exposed on the national media. A temporary lapse of mind it must be as Tushar’s posts are on the social media platform for anyone and everyone to see, how could he be exposed when everything he has expressed is out in the open.
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Throughout the interview Rajdeep shouted and asked how Tushar could term the arrested people as criminals in a desperate bid to save face. Tushar calmly replied that more than 250 organisation were present in the Elgar Parishad event and he had taken the names of a very few out of those who were present. In a highly unprofessional manner Rajdeep Sardesai tried to dominate Tushar and failed drastically at every step of the way, his mannerisms betrayed the angst he was feeling at members of his cabal being arrested. It seemed as if Rajdeep was trying to give a judgement by putting words in Tushar Damgude’s mouth, a new low even for Rajdeep Sardesai. Not being able to control his anger and his frustration Rajdeep turned his studio into a kangaroo court which could brand anyone guilty and ‘criminal’ or absolve them of their sins with a single judgement. The attempted ‘expose’ of Tushar Damgude turned into an expose of Rajdeep Sardesai in front of the national media and hinted towards him being hand in glove with members of the cabal, sad indeed.