Amid WhatsApp's Fake Privacy Promises, Arnab Goswami's Confidential Chats Leak

Arnab Goswami is back in the news and this time as well, he is not the one reading the headlines, but making it. Last year was a rollercoaster for Arnab and looks like, this year too, it is going to be the same. After the TRP scam, Arnab is now caught up in problems with the leaked WhatsApp chats.

On Jan 15, hearing of the TRP scam case took place in the Bombay High Court. The police found Arnab’s WhatsApp chats which revealed that he meddled with the Television Rating Point (TRP) in order to show Republic TV on top of charts.

The channel had denied such charges before and said all this is nothing but a political scandal. But with the recently leaked WhatsApp chats, many things have come to light. Arnab’s chats with Former CEO of BARC, Partho Dasgupta were also leaked.

In the chat, we can read that Dasgupta shared certain confidential details with Arnab after he confessed that Republic TV was not doing well with TRPs. He shared information on Break strategy and revealed that such information was not shared with anyone before.

Former CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) was also allegedly involved in the TRP scam.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan shared the screenshots on Twitter and wrote, “These are a few snapshots of the damning leaked WhatsApp chats between BARC CEO & Arnab Goswami. They show many conspiracies and unprecedented access to power in this government; gross abuse of his media and his position as power broker. In any Rule of law country, he would be in jail for long.”

The TRP scam was detected by BARC and they later filed a case in October 2020. The allegation was that certain big Television channels like Republic TV and others were responsible for tampering with the TRP charts. With Dasgupta’s help, Arnab was able to manipulate TRP charts and show his channel on top. This has been going on for a long time.

Not just the TRP numbers but through the chat it was also clear how the media can use their power in a negative manner and through political connections, manipulate anything and everything.

There were also chats regarding the February 2019, Indian Air Force strike on Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp in the Balakot of Pakistan. In the chat with Dasgupta, Goswami wrote “On another note something big will happen,” referring to the strike.

These are a few snapshots of the damning leaked WhatsApp chats between BARC CEO & #ArnabGoswami. They show many conspiracies&unprecedented access to power in this govt; gross abuse of his media&his position as power broker. In any Rule of law country, he would be in jail for long pic.twitter.com/6aGOR6BRQJ

— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) January 15, 2021

He shared how the strike will look good for the government and will make people happy. “Bigger than a normal strike. And also at the same time something major on Kashmir. In Pakistan the government is confident of striking in a way that people will be elated. Exact words used.”