Reliance Broadcasting has withdrawn its defamation lawsuit against Cobrapost for exposing, via a sting operation, that their media venture Big FM was open to accepting money to propagate Hindutva ideas, communal polarisation along with defaming opposition leaders to help the right-wing gain electoral dividends.
In the sting operation titled Operation 136, Big FM senior business partner Amit Choudhary had admitted to the backdoor relationship between Reliance and BJP saying, “Anyway, Reliance is always a supporter of the BJP.”
Cobrapost on Twitter declared the dropping of the Reliance lawsuit as “a clear vindication of our story and the truthfulness of it.”
completely blacked out by mainstream media and no corrective steps have been taken either by the media or any of the regulatory authorities. 2/2#Operation136
— Cobrapost (@cobrapost) April 30, 2019
Other media houses also accepted similar offers of propagating lies, and pro-Hindutva news. Those accepting the offer asked to be paid half in advance, in cash and also discussed how the payments can be made to hide the money trail and avoid suspicion.
In some instances, such as Times Group owner Vineet Jain, the media houses did not even hesitate to quote a price as high as Rs. 1000 crore in exchange.
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The media houses that agreed to run the campaign were Times of India, India Today, Hindustan Times, Zee News, Network 18, Paytm, Star India, Sab TV, ABP News, Dainik Jagran, DNA, Amar Ujala, Scoopwhoop, Rediff.com, Radio One, Red FM, Lokmat, Big FM, The New Indian Express and Open magazine among others.
However, due to the nature and scope of the sting operation, the news did not have too many takers and was blocked out by most media houses except The Indian Express and The Hindu.