Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi on Tuesday accused news anchor Rahul Kanwal and India Today of airing an interview in which she was allegedly misleadingly reprinted.
Kanwal is the news director at India Today.
Chaturvedi had given an interview to the news channel on Monday about former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique’s killing.
In a statement posted to X, she alleged that Kanwal had invited her on his show for a person-to-person interview and that she agreed on the condition that it would not be “part of some live panel/face-off/debate on the law-and-order issue in Maharashtra in the backdrop of Baba Siddique's brazen murder in Mumbai”.
The segment was recorded at Chaturvedi’s office at 5 pm.
“I was horrified to learn that I was misleadingly presented in a debate format, where I am shown as nodding and agreeing with everything stated by the other speaker from the Opposition who was defending the lawlessness in the state in an attempt to salvage [Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s] tattered reputation,” Chaturvedi said.
She added: “What has been done is not just misleading and unethical but also an attempt to fraudulently show an exchange while there was none. On pointing the same out to you Rahul, you were apologetic but I was appalled that you wanted me to delete my Tweet while taking no steps to correct the misleading segment.”
Chaturvedi said she believed this was not the first time that India Today had aired an allegedly midleading footage and demanded that a social media post on a segment of the interview be deleted.
She also demanded a public apology for “the deliberate distortion and unethical handling of my participation in this segment”.
The MP said she hoped that India Today would uphold the highest standards of journalism and correct its mistake. “Else, as a member of the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, I will be compelled to address the manipulation and misrepresentation through the appropriate forum available to me,” she added.
Her statement was also sent to India Today’s Executive Editor-in-Chief Kalli Purie, who is also the vice chairperson of the India Today Group.
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