A video of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait accusing a woman colleague of Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami of inappropriately touching him has gone viral on social media. In the viral video, Tikait can be seen scolding a woman representative of Republic TV for allegedly touching farmer leader inappropriately.
Angrily, Tikait shouts at the representative of Republic TV saying, “Touch karti hai, physical touch karte hai. Na Na. Galat chiz hai. Jao yaha se (You touch me, You touch me physically. This is inappropriate. Get lost from here).”
Republic TV’s so-called ‘reporter’ was Anju Nirwan, who took to Twitter to accuse Rakesh Tikait of arrogance. According to her, Tikait is not a farmer leader as he allegedly misbehaved with a ‘female reporter’.
Not long ago, another video of Tikait refusing to talk to a representative of Arnab Goswami’s channel went viral.
Republic TV had earlier created a similar controversy when one of its female representatives accused a man named A Singh of misbehavior. Broadcast watchdog NBSA, now renamed as NBDSA, in 2018 found the channel guilty of swindling, lewd, cheap, obscene, sexist perverts of an innocent man. Goswami had tried to defame A Singh by falsely accusing Shivani Gupta of harassing a journalist who was covering a rally called by Dalit activist and MLA Jignesh Mevani.
Singh’s wife, Pratishtha Singh had approached the NBSA, which ruled in her favor and directed Republic TV to air an on-air apology on 7 September at 9 pm. The channel was also given the option to air a full-screen apology on 14 September if it failed to do so on 7 September. Goswami later broke away from NBSA.
This fellow Arnab Gowsami and his Republic TV and its reporters has brought disrepute to the profession of journalism. Him and his channel needs to boycotted and banned for the good of broadcast journalism.