Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Friday brought up the issue of leaked Whatsapp chats of Republic TV Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami saying the Bharatiya Janata Party led government should be ashamed of protecting him. While slamming the government over its handling of the farmers’ stir, Raut said the government is slapping sedition charges on alleged traitors, but what about people like Arnab Goswami and Kangana Ranaut? The Shiv Sena leader asked if they were patriots in government’s eye.
He said the government was giving protection to a man because of whom an innocent man committed suicide in Maharashtra. He said Goswami was responsible for leaking official secret of the country, which was a matter of national security but the government continues to remain mum on the issue.
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Goswami was the centre of controversy when his Whatsapp chats with Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) head Partho Dasgupta surfaced. In the chat that took three days prior to the Balakot airstrike, Goswami told Dasgupta that something major will be done and that it will be bigger than a normal airstrike, which indicates he might have had prior information about the IAF’s air strikes.
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Referring to the chat in which Goswami called BJP leader Prakash Javadekar useless, Raut said BJP should be ashamed of protecting a man who uses such bad words for Javadekar. Earlier, the Mumbai police had claimed that Goswami had bribed Dasgupta to ramp up Republic TV’s viewership. The police had also filed a 3,400-page supplementary charge sheet in the TRP case against BARC and Republic TV among others. Raut asked the Centre why Deep Sidhu was yet to be arrested. He said the prime minister was very sad with the insult at Red Fort but the one who insulted the national flag was still free. He also asked why the government was silent on Deep Sidhu’s affiliations with the BJP.