‘You are sold out Coupta,’ VK Singh tears into Shekhar Gupta for article urging opposition to spread misinformation

Veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta is at the target of retired Indian Army Chief, VK Singh yet again- this time because the Editors Guild of India (read ‘Editors Guilt of India’) President Shekhar Gupta tweeted an article published on his portal, The Print instigating the opposition to spread misinformation in order to “win the game”.

The article written by Shivam Vij and published on the portal founded by Shekhar Gupta isn’t even subtle, and abets the opposition to spread misinformation in so many words. It reads, “As the Hindi saying goes, iron cuts iron. When public opinion is being manipulated with fake news and lies, the opposition cannot win the game with mere fact-checking. It may have to do its own rapid and continuous misinformation with little regard for the truth.”

Needless to say, it is unbecoming of the Editors Guild of India President to give space to such an ideology on his portal, when he is supposed to maintain highest editorial standards in the first place. Not only did he allow his portal to be used for abetting misinformation and fake news, he also went live on Twitter facilitating an even bigger audience for such shocking views.

This caught the eye of VK Singh, former Army Chief and presently the Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, and it soon became clear that the retired General has no love lost for the veteran journalist since last year when he had hit out at Gupta over the ‘coup’ story that had been published in the Indian Express in 2012.

Targeting Shekhar Gupta, Singh tweeted, “As the President of the Editors Guild, when you retweet an article that does both of the above and slyly advised they opposition to peddle #FakeNews or stem opinion in states that they govern, you do a disservice to your fraternity.”

Singh also took a veiled jibe at Gupta over the ‘coup’ story and added, “You highlight to the world, again, that you are sold out. C’mon #Coupta be honest to the post even if you can’t (be) to your profession From #FakeCoup stories to advising on curbing speech & peddling #FakeNews- You are living up to your name!!”

Remember, more than a year ago, the Union Minister had taken a dig at Shekhar Gupta over a 2012 fake coup story published in the Indian Express when Gupta was the editor-in chief of the newspaper.

The Indian Express story was debunked by a Sunday Guardian report last year, prompting the retired General to say, “When Mr Coupta was recruited by the powers-behind-the-scenes to cleverly imply I was planning a coup, their objective was to not only spook the good Doctor (Dr. Manmohan Singh) and his Italian handler (Sonia Gandhi), it was also the time honoured tactic that had been in vogue to set Nehru versus Thimayya, Shastri versus Chaudhuri, or Indira Gandhi versus Manekshaw. However, earlier these were usually just whispers… which was damaging enough”.

The issue had snowballed into a major political controversy after the Sunday Guardian claimed that the UPA-II government had planted the Army coup story, at a time when the Defence Ministry was engaged in a bitter age issue with the then Army Chief, General VK Singh and the coalition government was battling serious graft allegations plunging its popularity to an all-time low. One of the authors of the story was Shekhar Gupta, which had led to VK Singh slamming the 62-year old journalist.

The mainstream media loves to hate Union Minister VK Singh, who doesn’t oblige them either as is clear from his comments about Shekhar Gupta. Now, the article telling the opposition to lie has renewed mutual hatred between VK Singh and Shekhar Gupta, leading to some hard-hitting remarks by Singh against The Print founder.