The Congress has said it will “not participate” in anchor Rahul Kanwal’s show Newstrack on India Today as he “allowed obnoxious remarks to go unchallenged” and also “amplified” it on X. 

The party referred to BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya’s remarks made on the show on Tuesday when it discussed the Donald Trump assassination bid and similar incidents in India. Malviya alleged that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s narratives and the opposition’s politics have set the stage for “similar attacks” in India, and that former Congress leaders were “assassinated for their political decisions”.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said on X that besides amplifying the remarks, Kanwal also did “not allow” Congress spokesperson Mahima Singh “to complete her counter” and had not deleted the tweets despite Khera’s request. “We are constrained to announce that we shall not be participating in the show of Mr Rahul Kanwal.”

Khera said that Malviya’s “obnoxious remarks belittling the martyrdom of former Prime Ministers of India and other great leaders” were allowed to go “unchallenged” and the “anchor himself tweeted and amplified the same remarks from his Twitter handle. On being pointed out, the anchor said his producer had tweeted it.”  

Kanwal shared the clips from the debate show in two tweets on X, one captioned with Malviya’s quote and another with Singh’s remark.  

Notably, the INDIA bloc banned a total of 14 anchors in September last year for being “partisan” and holding “hateful debates”. While Kanwal was not named in the list, two other IndiaToday anchors – Gaurav Sawant and Shiv Aroor – were mentioned. 

Newslaundry elaborately reported on the ban and how the opposition parties zeroed in on the names. Read here.

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