New Delhi | A day after Milind Khandekar, Managing editor of ABP News Network resigned on Wednesday, the channel received yet another setback as senior journalist and Anchor of the flagship show ‘Masterstroke’ Punya Prasoon Bajpai reportedly resigned on Thursday night.
According to the report published in ‘Janta ka Reporter‘, a journalist said “The whole atmosphere was very emotional and sad.” He further added that Bajpai further wished everyone here well. Then the entire office escorted him to the main door to say good bye.
Earlier Milind Khandekar while announcing his resignation on Twitter wrote, “14 years & 8 days later it’s time to move on. Today was my last day as Managing Editor @abpnewstv . Thank you for being part of my journey so far.”
14 years & 8 days later it’s time to move on. Today was my last day as Managing Editor @abpnewstv . Thank you for being part of my journey so far.
— Milind Khandekar (@milindkhandekar) August 1, 2018
Few sources report that ABP’s anchor, Abhisar Sharma who has been the fiercest critics of the Narendra Modi government has also been asked to take 15 days leave. Also Rajan Singh, another journalist at the ABP has been asked to leave the organisation. The sources further add that the recent turnaround in the news network is due to its recent coverage that had angered the Centre’s Narendra Modi government.
In its prime time show ‘Master Stroke’ Bajpai has reported that during the video interaction Prime Minister Narendra Modi held on June 20 with beneficiaries of various government programmes a participant from Chhattisgarh, Chandramani Kaushik, told PM Modi on the show that her income had doubled after she switched from cultivating paddy to growing custard apples. However when ABP interviewed the same woman claimed that officials from Delhi had arrived in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh to tutor her before her interaction with PM Modi, to falsely claim about doubling of income.
Various BJP leader including Defence minister Nirmala Sitaraman and IT minister Rajwardhan Singh Rathore criticised the report.
Some media houses have unapologetically aligned themselves to the agenda of deriding PM @narendramodi ‘s efforts by all means. Despicable! The real story of Chhattisgarh’s farmer women who rubbished the claims of a section of media #UnfortunateJournalism https://t.co/4E8S9mwRDZ
— Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) July 9, 2018
Various Twitter users reported that they were unable to get access to ABP news at the time when Masterstroke, Bajpai’s show, was being aired after the channel reported the story.
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