Known for his political bent TV-anchor Rajdeep Sardesai caught in his own tweet-speed last week.

In a First, he tweeted about Netaji Subhash’s portrait .On January 23, 2021, the President of India unveiled a portrait of Netaji on his 125th birth anniversary. Sardesai said it is Prasenjit Chatterjee from a movie. “The Rashtrapati Bhavan could have found a ‘nice original’ portrait for the occasion”, said the tweet. Even after reactions, he tweeted,”The Government insists that the Netaji portrait in the @rashtrapatibhvn is an original portrait and not from a movie. Tweet deleted. An official clarification likely to be made soon. This is the pic from the movie…” and posted the movie pic. Later he again tweeted Netaji’s photograph on which the artist Paresh Maity made the portrait. Rashtrapati Bhavan took the notice and sent a letter to IndiaToday group where he is consulting editor these days.

In a second one, Rajdeep’s fast tweet turned out be false. He tweeted that a farmer was allegedly killed in police firing in the tractor rally on 26th January and “farmers tell me,his ‘sacrifice’ will not not go in vein.” Later, it became clear that the farmer died when his tractor overturned.

According to the Print, besides the tweet, Sardesai, while speaking to another India Today reporter from the ground, said on his show the deceased, Navneet Singh, would become a symbol for the agitating farmers and they would not leave till they got “justice for Navneet”. Sardesai later retracted his tweet . After the controversy , headlines became viral : “India Today takes Rajdeep Sardesai off air, docks month’s salary for tweet on farmer’s death.”

ThePrint reached Sardesai via WhatsApp for a comment, but he declined to speak on the matter. 

When ThePrint reached The India Today group, an email from their corporate communication desk said: “Disciplinary action for breach of our code of conduct is a confidential matter and we would like to refrain from commenting on this.”