Not its first: Congress leaders attacked Zee News in Oct

Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s disparaging remarks against the Editor of ANI, who had interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 1, is not the first time that the Congress and its leaders attacked the media. 

Last year in October, Zee News had protested against the attacks by Congress leaders Navjot Singh Sidhu and Randeep Surjewala. 

Sidhu had claimed that Zee News had aired ‘fake news’ after a video of a rally addressed by him in Rajashtna’s Alwar where some people were seen shouting pro-Pakistan slogans. Playing the video prominently, Zee News questioned Congress’ and Sidhu’s stance on the “Pakistan Zindabad” slogans. Following this, the Congress had launched an attack on Zee News, but the channel stood its ground and issued a Rs 1,000 crore defamation notice against him.

Zee News editor-in-chief Sudhir Chaudhary also took on Surjewala for his tweet, where he alleged that Zee News played a doctored video of the rally. 

A letter from Zee News editors was then sent to the Congress president, pointing out this behaviour, as well as imploring him to prevent it from happening again.

The letter, which was co-signed by Sudhir Chaudhary, read, “We are nobody’s mouthpiece and we refuse to be called so. We believe in democratic principles, which is why we are writing to you.”

But as the ZEE TV Editor noted, the response (to the letter) from Rahul Gandhi was ‘stony silence.’