Union minister Nitin Gadkari sends legal notice to Kharge, Jairam Ramesh for posting clip of his interview ‘out of context’

Earlier this week, Gadkari was interviewed by a private television network. During the course of the interaction, he expressed concerns over the lack of development in rural villages. At the same time, he also emphasised how the present government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi made concerted efforts to bring overall development to uplift farmers, the poor and villagers.

According to Gadkari, Congress leaders deliberately posted a selected portion of his interview with Hindi captions that read: “Aaj gaon ke mazdoor aur kisan dukhi hain. Gaon mein achhe road nahi hain. Peene ke liye shuddh pani nahi hain, achhe aspatal nahi hain (Today in villages, labourers, farmers are sad. In villages there are no good roads. There is no clean drinking water. There is no good hospital.)”

The legal notice served on the Congress leaders stated, “Our client (Gadkari) was shocked to know and see contents and post on X at 9.36 am on March 1, 2024. The Congress leaders deliberately posted 19 seconds audio and video clipping by concealing the contextual intent and meaning of the interview. The sinister act done with sole intent and ulterior motives to fan and create confusion, sensation and disrepute to Gadkari in public eyes at large and also a futile endeavour to build fissure and rift in the solidarity of BJP which is all poised to win the trust of people in upcoming general elections under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi.”

Terming the clip of the interview “twisted” and “distorted”, it blamed the Congress’s actions on repeated “electoral rejection” in states which prompted the party to “build false and fictitious narrative by falsely attributing the facts and statements” to BJP leaders “devoid of the contextual meaning.”

The union minister, through the notice, clarified that while giving the interview he had highlighted the incessant efforts made by the present government for the poor, farmers and villages which has yielded good results. Yet, Congress leaders deliberately posted the Hindi caption and video by concealing the contextual meaning of the interaction with malicious intent to malign his reputation, Gadkari alleged.

“The content of the video clip devoid of contextual intent of interaction as well as captioned Hindi title are completely false, scandalous, factually incorrect” and “an intentional attempt by Congress leaders to insult and demean Gadkari, coupled with your intention to… develop ideological rift within party,” the notice said.

Expressing serious concern over the Congress leaders’ act, it pointed out, “The content shared on social media has resulted in big reputation damage, defamation and great loss of credibility of his (Gadkari’s) image and spread slander, gossip and hearsay.”