Rajdeep Sardesai has a long history of being called out by famous personalities for spreading fake news — everyone from former President Pranab Mukherjee to Mukesh Ambani has have told him, straight to his face, about his proclivity to bend the truth. But now Sardesai is being called out by educational institutions as well.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has called out Rajdeep Sardesai for spreading fake news around exams not being held in north east Delhi on account of the CAA violence. “Breaking now: CBSE exams will not be held in north east Delhi tomorrow in view of the violence. While local netas and criminal gangs settle scores, the citizen suffers. Will action be taken against those who provoked the violence?” he tweeted.
But it turned out that Sardesai’s tweet was nothing but his usual fear-mongering. “Sir there are no exam centers in north east Delhi for CBSE exams tomorrow,’ the CBSE account respectfully told him. As there were no centers in north east Delhi for the exam the day after, they couldn’t possibly have been shut on account of the violence.
It’s understandable why Sardesai would want to spread fake news about exam centers being shut — by overstating the seriousness of the violence in Delhi, Sardesai would’ve had another opportunity to corner the government, and to attack it for letting the violence take place. But while Sardesai’s claims were immediately debunked, they could’ve had a real-world impact — some students, on seeing his tweet, could’ve been misled into believing that their exams had been cancelled, and not shown up to write them. But Rajdeep obviously didn’t care: as of 12:13 am, an hour after he was corrected by the CBSE, his tweet is still up on his Twitter account, where it still has the potential to misinform students.
