Corridors of Power

Those who make political accusations are often immune to or beyond scrutiny. But when they do it online, just a few clicks are enough to nail their lie.

On August 6, the BJP’s IT Cell, through its official Twitter handle (in picture) @BJPkarITCell posted a picture of a heavily-potholed road with a caption that read: “NASA found people walking on moon, later BBMP confirmed it as Bengaluru Road [sic].”

The dig, however, boomeranged when Twitter users pointed out that the picture was taken in Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra — a State which happens to be ruled by the BJP. As a flood of criticisms followed, State Tourism Minister Priyank Kharge, who is one of the few Congress Ministers active on the social networking site, dared the BJP to prove that the picture was from Bengaluru. He offered to take the rivals on a pothole counting trip in the city and also demanded an apology for the misguided accusation.

The BJP’s IT Cell, however, has not backed down nor deleted the factually wrong post. Instead, it posted a sketch with the punchline: “Moon’s monopoly shattered: Bangalore Out“Craters” the moon [sic],” followed by numerous links to media articles on the state of roads in Karnataka. Meanwhile, BJP leader C.T. Ravi jumped into the fray to accuse the Congress of “shooting the messenger while ignoring the message.”

In the era of booming fake news, the BJP IT Cell may have got an invaluable lesson: do not try it with a [fake] picture.

Here is one more on the thin line of fact and fiction that newspersons face. On the second day of the recent Income Tax searches at Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar’s (in picture)Sadashivanagar residence, the Minister’s camp circulated among mediapersons a ‘panchanama’ that showed no seizure of money or documents from the house — much to the surprise of the recipients. While a few news channels aired it as an anti-climax to the I-T operations, it took a few others just a few minutes to debunk the document.

A call to one of those listed as witness in the ‘panchanama’ revealed that the document pertained to the home office of the Minister’s brother, D.K. Suresh; and the premises was bang opposite the Minister’s residence. The witness was, in fact, the landlord who told The Hindu that Mr. Suresh, who is the MP for Bengaluru Rural, had rented out the house 11 months back to run his office and the document was in no way connected to the Minister’s residence. While the ‘panchanama’ did not mention Mr. Suresh, it was titled “Panchanama in the case of D.K. Shivakumar”,which clearly misled the media for almost a day. Even the I-T department was surprised by the panchnama and had to clarify the matter.

Meanwhile, a few television channels were busy showing details of assets and liabilities of the Minister purportedly linked to the searches. It did not take some of us long to figure out that these were the declarations made to the Lokayukta this year. The viewers were no doubt flummoxed.

The police in Dakshina Kannada district and Mangaluru City Commissionerate appear to have different standards for different people accused of damaging public property. In some cases, they go especially slow.

On the day Income Tax sleuths swooped on various premises of Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar, Youth Congress cadres in Mangaluru vandalised the I-T office in the city. They were led by Mangaluru City Corporation Councillor A.C. Vinayraj. The city police booked a suo motu case against him and others after waiting for a formal complaint by officials. No one was arrested and the police initially said the accused were served with notice as they were not traceable.

Two days later, journalists attending an official meeting — where Minister in charge of the district B. Ramanath Rai, the Deputy Commissioner and others were present — were surprised to see Mr. Vinayraj at the event. He was asked about his presence but the embarrassed councillor did not react.

Mohit M. Rao

K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj

Anil Kumar Sastry