A video allegedly featuring the 24-year-old Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader, Hardik Patel, was put on social media on Monday, November 13. The 10-minute video, shot in a hotel, bears a timestamp of May 16, 2017. It purportedly shows Patel, or someone who looks like him, sitting with a woman on a bed, before he gets up to turn off the lights — if you really strain your eyes, you’d be able to see the couple make out for a fraction of second in the dim red light. Yes, that is what passes off as a “sex CD” in India.
Predictably, Gujarati TV news channels picked this up immediately to turn it into a full-blown sex scandal. The tape also made quite a splash on mainstream television news channels, with Republic TV even devoting its primetime to the issue, if you can call it that. ABP News ran a show headlined, Gujarat ki rajniti mai bhuchal [Gujarat politics witnesses an earthquake].
Be that as it may, newspapers in Gujarat didn’t care much for the “sex scandal”.
It was missing from the front page of some of the most read Gujarati dailies, like Sandesh as well as Gujarat Samachar. The former put the story on its second page of its Ahmedabad edition, while the latter put it on the second page of its Surat edition.
Sandesh‘s story on page 2
Gujarat Samachar‘s story on page 2
The Surat edition of Dainik Bhaskar ran a two-column story on its front page, stating: “Video vivaad mai ghere Hardik; Bole – BJP ki gandi rajniti. (Hardik surrounded by video controversy; Says – BJP’s dirty politics). Its Gujarati edition, Divya Bhaskar, carried an interview with Patel on the fourth page, with him stating that the video had no basis in facts.
Dainik Bhaskar’s two-column story
Divya Bhaskar’s story on page 4
Gujarat Samachar‘s front page
Sandesh’s front page
With Patel calling the video a ‘dirty politics’ ploy by the governing party, that is BJP, he received much support on Twitter. Our favourite among them was Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani’s pitch for a right to sex as a fundamental right. We’d probably make that consensual sex.
Others included: