 "Facepalm: General VK Singh's 'presstitutes' comment on Times Now is another Twitter fail")
After the controversy that he generated after attending Pakistan’s national day celebrations, former army chief General VK Singh largely stayed out of the headlines until he went to Yemen to monitor evacuation efforts being carried out by the Indian government.
The retired general who is now Minister of State for External Affairs has a penchant for sarcasm and during the course of an interview carried out in Djibouti, remarked that the evacuation operation in Yemen wasn’t as exciting as his attending the event in Delhi.
Dekha jaye to yeh kaam utna exciting nahi lag raha jitna mera Pak embassy mai jaane ka tha: VK Singh #YemenEvacuation pic.twitter.com/sPjyg47Bed
— ANI (@ANI) April 6, 2015
Times Now which had also been laying low after its #ShamedInSydney debacle, immediately jumped on the comment and coined a fresh new hashtag. The pithy #VKDisaster
General VK Singh says Yemen rescue operation is not as exciting as his visit to Pakistan embassy. #VKDisaster
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) April 7, 2015
But, with national pride riding high after the internationally lauded Yemen rescue operations, the hashtag spawned widespread backlash on Twitter. People across the board criticised the channel for going after the general while he was engaged in a humanitarian task. And instead of the #VKDisaster that the channel was pushing, #TimesNowDisaster began to trend instead. Here’s what some Twitterati had to say:
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIndian media doesn't understand ANYTHING #TimesNowDisaster http://t.co/G3K2MBeLwb
— Mahesh 🇮🇳 (@invest_mutual) April 7, 2015
Looks like YoYo is twitting on behalf of @TimesNow , day by day their tweets are getting useless! Pls grow up or shut up! #TimesNowDisaster
— Vishwesh (@vishweshji) April 7, 2015
Great comparison! India bashing is our pastime!! @Sir_R_U_L: #TimesNowDisaster
— Sucheta Dalal (@suchetadalal) April 7, 2015
CNN International versus Times Now http://t.co/y7zZr3N7UJ
Im nt surprsed @timesnow is defamng Gen V K Singh. What they dont understand is, theyre only hurting their own credibility #TimesNowDisaster
— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) April 7, 2015
Given the widespread support he suddenly had on his side, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the General to just lay low and enjoy the bashing that Times Now was getting by his outraged legions of fans. But alas, that was not to be. Maybe you could blame it on years of army training, which prompted the general to press his advantage after sensing weakness in his enemy. But whatever his motivation, he ended up tweeting this:
Friends what do you you expect from presstitutes. Last time Arnab thought there was 'O' in place of 'E' #TimesNowDisaster
— Gen VK Singh (@Gen_VKSingh) April 7, 2015
Expectedly this has become the most popular tweet in the trend with over 6000 retweets. But given the former army chief is a Minister of State for External Affairs is such language on a public forum really appropriate? He ended up sounding like a Twitter troll, and also effectively did the impossible, in giving a floundering Times Now the moral high ground. The channel is now flashing headlines about VK Singh’s ‘abuse’ and we can expect them to run with that for a while.
And what makes matters even worse, is that this isn’t even the first time that the good general has lashed out at the media after making headlines for the wrong reasons.
Amidst the controversy over his 'disgust and duty' tweets after he attended the Pakistan National Day celebrations, Singh had tweeted against the Indian Express saying that the ‘P’ word fit them like a glove. And while he was held up as a hero by the media hating Twitter hordes, it is significant that he has quietly gone ahead and deleted the tweet. No doubt someone with better sense prevailed. Which is why this particular tweet is doubly unforgiveable. After a precedent the first time around, he really ought to have been more careful this time.
It’s time the former army chief realises that while he is obviously free to speak his mind as an individual, and even when he was the army chief, in his role as a Minister he unfortunately doesn’t enjoy the same luxury. Everything he says will be seen to have official sanction and when he chooses to target a media house over a slight, it effectively sounds like he has the government’s sanction to do so.
While better counsel may prevail over Singh in due course and the offending tweet might be deleted in order to maintain peace, it also needlessly takes away the focus from what has been a very commendable operation by the Indian armed forces in Yemen.
After the Pakistan National Day controversy, we'd advised the former army chief to keep his tweeting fingers in check but given that seems impossible, he’d do well to perhaps just stick to retweeting images of official operations rather than expressing his opinion.
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