CWG Scam: Propaganda war begins

Todays Media Hall of shame covers media coverage of IT & CBI raids in connection with awarding of contracts for the CWG.

Almost all the major media houses (NDTV, TOI, IE & HT) has reported this as

NDTV: CWG scam: Income Tax raids at BJP leader's office

TOI: CWG scam: CBI raids BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal's house

IE: CWG probe targets BJP's Sudhanshu Mittal

NDTV in its news article writes

Among them, the office of senior BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal, whose relatives were allegedly given major contracts for different aspects of the Commonwealth Games.

NDTV continues

On Monday, Income Tax officials visited the offices of the Organising Committee, headed by Suresh Kalmadi. Sources say financial documents linked to the broadcast rights for the Games are being studied for alleged tax evasion

So per NDTV IT Officers ‘Raided’ BJP Leaders house but they ‘Visited’ (not raided) office of OC chairman Suresh Kamadi. So one visit was called Raid and other becomes an innocent visit. I am really tempted to ask NDTV did Kalmadi offer IT officers tea when they were visiting Kalmadi. Also have they forgotten Kalmadi is also a senior congress leader

Surprisingly, what was left unsaid in most of news articles is clarification from IT dept. Hindustan Times in their article CWG probe: I-T raid on BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal carries the clarification -

Let me clarify, these are search operations. The task assigned is to look into the books of accounts and related documents, examine the records and take custody of them, if necessary," the official said.

"We are searching for irregularities, if any, in execution of contracts. We are looking at all contractors. Whoever the contractor is, we are looking. I can't name any specific company or person,"

So these were just search operations and IT officers visited offices of all contractors. Sudhanshu Mittal may or may not be guilty only time will tell but its highly objectionable that media is creating a wrong impression by twisting and misrepresenting the facts.

The timing of this news release also is suspect. This comes just before BJP President was to make a major announcement wrt CWG corruption.