What got Times Group and DNA to pull down the Amit Shah affidavit story?

Shocking as Twitter may have found it to be, what The Times of India pulled off this weekend was really as banal as the Shobhaa De column on its Sunday edit pages.

This is, after all, the third time (of which we know) that India’s largest media conglomerate has pulled down a story that features men from the Bharatiya Janata Party over the last three years. Without any explanation whatsoever.

More on that later. First, a little on the latest instance of the Times Group’s PC Sorcar act.

What’s in the affidavit

On Saturday, TOI’s Ahmedabad edition published a story on its city page, headlined, ‘Shah’s assets grew by 300% in five years’. The story can be read on TOI’s epaper segment. It was pegged on Shah’s affidavit submitted as part of his Rajya Sabha nomination from Gujarat. The report states: “Shah’s movable and immovable (including his wife) assets increased by about 300% from 2012. His assets (movable and immovable), which were worth Rs 8.54 crore in 2012 are now worth Rs 34.31 crore.” This story was published across Times Group’s web platforms including on Economic Times and Navbharat Times, only to be removed.

Meanwhile, the BJP clarified last evening that the rise in assets is largely owing to Shah’s ancestral wealth, which he inherited in 2013 after his mother passed away. The press release issued by Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal states that he inherited Rs 18.85 crore worth of movable and immovable assets after a court order.

A closer scrutiny of Shah’s affidavit shows that he inherited listed shares worth Rs 10.05 crore, jewellery worth Rs 29.72 lakh, a house worth Rs 2.5 lakh and a heritage home worth Rs 1.50 crore. Apart from this, he has declared non-listed shares (inherited and self) worth Rs 3 crore. This comes close to Rs 16 crore of inheritance.

Back to the press release, one of the prime reasons why BJP seems to have issued it was to expresses its dismay that media houses that reported on the affidavit did not dwell on the inheritance aspect or did not consider it necessary to do so.

To be sure, this isn’t an unreasonable expectation. The TOI report does not dwell into details on Shah’s inheritance, neither has it sought a quote from his office on the increase in assets.

Contrast this to the time when the media reported on a double-fold increase in former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assets in 2012. Most media outlets including TOI carried a PTI story that had a quote from Singh’s office explaining that the rise is owing to an increase in valuation after an assessment by a government-approved valuator.

As it is with such things, no one we reached out to at the Times Group or the BJP wanted to come on record about the vanishing stories. BJP spokespersons told us that the party had nothing to do with it but stated that it was sensational journalism to not have mentioned Shah inheriting his mother’s property.

People we spoke to at the Times Group remained tight-lipped about why the stories were pulled down. Some hinted that the BJP had made its displeasure known.

Newslaundry’s attempts to elicit a response from editorial head of TOI digital yielded no results.

Meanwhile, Times Group’s decision to pull down the story seemed to have had a ripple effect on DNA that also pulled down a story on Shah’s assets that it had carried on Saturday. DNA web team head told us that he had no idea about any story being pulled down but Newslaundry has learnt that the decision could have to do with TOI deleting the stories.

DNA, however, still has a PTI story up on its website that speaks of a three-fold increase in Shah’s asset.

It’s like nothing ever happened

As of today TOI has reported on the BJP press release but there has been no explanation to its readers on why it deleted the original stories on Shah’s affidavit.

Even if one was to consider that the TOI story did not adequately dwell on the inheritance angle, a simple update with the BJP or Shah’s point of view would have sufficed. It is curious that instead of updating the story with complete facts, the Times Group deemed it fit to take it off the face of Internet altogether.

This is the same organisation that carried a false report on the missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed’s so-called Islamic State connection that still sits pretty on the website. The Delhi Police discredited the story but that did not nudge TOI into updating the story with the police’s version, leave alone pull it down or apologise for it.

Indeed when it comes to stories on Modi and Shah, both the Times Group and DNA have in the past displayed extreme sensitivity.

In November 2014, TOI carried two reports pegged on Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopting the village, Jayapur, 25 kms away from Varanasi. These stories were headlined, “No Muslims in Modi’s Village” and “Modi’s adopted village Jayapur stopped Aurangzeb’s army”. The former could have its basis in a fact, even though TOI didn’t bother to substantiate the assertion, and the latter was based on a “local legend”. No prizes for guessing that the former got pulled down.

More recently, TOI and Economic Times deleted its reports on India falling three places on the World Press Freedom ranking. The reason for our bad performance was “threat from Modi’s nationalism”, according to Reporters Sans Frontières. TOI and ET both highlighted this aspect but the reports didn’t sit on the website for long. Perhaps because the powers that be at Times Group realised that they’d like Modi to be there at next year’s Global Business Summit after all.

Moving on to DNA, in 2014, the media organisation deleted two stories without any explanation. Both were scathing critiques of Modi and Shah. Ironically, back then TOI had reported on how DNA’s decision to pull down a story critical of Shah was met with considerable flak on social media.

The practice isn’t unique to these two. Over the past three years organisations like NDTV, Firstpost and Tehelka have pulled down stories that didn’t reflect well on powerful people, whether it is corporations like Reliance or men in the government. What’s more worrying than the cravenness at display is the rank disrespect for news consumers. The fact that some of the country’s biggest media houses feel that they can get away with deleting stories without offering any explanation says a thing or two on how they prioritise their readers. Or indeed if they are a priority at all.

The author can be contacted at manisha.pande1110@gmail.com and on Twitter @MnshaP.