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Journalism of Courage
Comedian Kunal Kamra and Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal took the internet by storm on Sunday with their heated exchange over Ola Electric’s S1 series of EV scooters. What seems like a never-ending war of words on X began when Kamra tagged Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and the Department of Consumer Affairs and asked users to share their issues with the Ola scooters they have purchased.
Sharing a picture of several EV scooters parked outside one of the company’s showrooms, Kamra wrote, “Do indian consumers have a voice? Do they deserve this? Two wheelers are many daily wage workers lifeline…@nitin_gadkari is this how Indians will get to using EV’s? @jagograhakjago any word? Anyone who has an issue with OLA electric leave your story below tagging all.”
Aggarwal alleged Kamra was paid for the post slamming his company, and sarcastically asked him to join his team. “Since you care so much @kunalkamra88, come and help us out! I’ll even pay more than you earned for this paid tweet or from your failed comedy career. Or else sit quiet and let us focus on fixing the issues for the real customers. We’re expanding service network fast and backlogs will be cleared soon,” Aggarwal responded.
Kamra responded to this post by sharing a video showing the audience cheering for him as he took the centre stage, and called
The verbal spat continued as Aggarwal mocked the comedian saying he would pay more than his “flop shows”. “Chot lagi? Dard hua? Aaja service center. Bahut kaam hai. (Does it hurt? Come to the service center. We are swamped with work). I will pay better than your flop shows pay you. Show your audience how much you truly care and whether you’re only gas and BS,” the Ola CEO wrote on X, responding to Kamra’s post.
“Instead can you give a total refund to anyone who wants to return their OLA EV & who’s purchased it in the last 4 months? I don’t need your money people not being able to get to their workplace need your accountability. Show your customers that you truly care?” Kamra wrote back.
Last month, a video of an Ola Electric customer set ablaze in one of the company’s showrooms in Karnataka after a delay in repairing his electric scooter.
Numerous social media users thronged to the comment section to report complaints over Ola’s scooters and the company’s customer service. “I bought an Ola scooter at launch and I can say with my bad experience, people around me. Don’t fall in the trap of buying this crap ola scooter or any other ola product. They don’t have a customer support, service centres, sell below average quality products with panel gaps and manufacturing defects,” a user shared. “Over 20 days and I’m not even getting an appointment for my issue despite purchasing their premium service plan OLA CARE+. I was supposed to be offered a towing in emergency but no one came and i had to tow myself after 12 hours on road,” another user wrote.
“Ola Electric have many manufacturing defects still I don’t know what their research team is doing. My friend bought one last year and while riding the front tire came off Luckily, he was at a slow speed,” a third user reacted.
