Senior Journalist Shekhar Gupta, the founder and owner of the media organization “The Print” and also the Chief of Editor’s Guild, has made a surprising acknowledgement post elections. While speaking at a discussion on ‘How India voted’, he has accepted that journalists deliberately ignored the implementation and impact of welfare schemes launched under the Modi Government.
“I have to say this very honestly that we journalists at the commentariat chose not to see it. Even when we see it we compulsively try to deny it”, said Shekhar Gupta.
The Left-Liberal media, in the run up to the general election was called out multiple times for blatantly manipulating reports over the implementation of various ambitions programmers under the Modi Government. A prime example of this was the Ujjwala Yojana in which around 7 crore new LPG connections were disbursed inculcating the revolutionary idea of Direct benefit Transfer (DBT).
Shekhar Gupta further indicating towards the hypocrisy prevailing in a certain Section of Media, added in the discussion, “We were hoping to see, evidence for the contrary, but we were not finding it, we were finding Gas cylinders, we would even peek inside the houses and find a Gas Cylinder.”
Shekhar Gupta also made similar remarks about the MUDRA Yojana, which had been largely underplayed by Left-Liberal media. He said, “Initially I thought that Mudra loans were rubbish, that these were all fakes. But I have videos… 50 kms from Azamgarh, a Dalit saying that ‘I got Rs 50,000 Mudra loans, made this chai shop, I repay Rs 1,300 every month. If I don’t repay on time, the bank manager sends somebody to me.’ And then I came back and checked the larger data, 4.81 crore people have got Mudra loans, and Rs 2.1 lakh crore has been disbursed.”
The whole section from Shekhar Gupta is a gold mine for those wanting to know the intellectual vacuum that these libbies live in. Listen from about 1:33:50 or so to about 1:36:30 for the most self incriminating evaluation. @iMac_too https://t.co/Gah6cjsVsZ
— spv (@shalinispv) May 31, 2019
Then Shekhar Gupta says, “Now I have to say this very honestly, that we journalists and commentariat chose not to see it. And even when we see it increasingly, we compulsively tried to deny it. ‘Oh they got the gas cylinders, but they can’t afford the next cylinder. The next one is full price.’ But that is a lie, the next one is not full price. The next one you pay full price, you get the subsidy amount back at your bank account.”
These comments by Shekhar Gupta expose the underlying hypocrisy in the reporting of the General election that prevailed in almost the entire Left-liberal media establishment. Left –Liberal media nexus tried to run the agenda based on their personal political inclinations against the BJP and in this meek attempt, the victims were only the voters, who were continuously being bombarded with these skewed attempts at journalism.
“The fact is that these people had never seen the delivery of anything. And even if they got any delivery they had not seen the delivery of anything without having to pay bribes for it including in most cases NAREGA wages. It’s a big change. It’s a big governance exercise. You may like it you may not like it but smart people are learning from it,” Shekhar Gupta said talking about how the Modi government has transformed the traditional governance methodologies.
After the massive landslide victory for the NDA, a barrage of Left-Liberals is coming out and accepting the deliberate hypocrisy which had shadowed the General elections, however it remains to be seen if these comments are just attempts to regain the lost credibility or a real shift in perspective.