Journalists, others slam Babul Supriyo over using ‘F’ word against Telegraph Editor

Journalists, media houses and common citizens are out in the support of The Telegraph Editor R. Rajagopal whom Union minister Babul Supriyo threatened and hurled expletives at on the phone.

The journalists and media houses spilled their anguish through tweets in which they also embedded a Telegraph report detailing how the entire incident unfolded.

The singer-turned-politician, and now Minister of State for Environment in the Narendra Modi government on Saturday said the editor of The Telegraph had “f***ing sold out” after the Editor refused to apologise for a statement wrongly attributed by the minister to the newspaper.

The minister, who is caught in a controversy associated with his visit to Jadavpur University on Thursday, called The Telegraph editor R. Rajagopal on his mobile phone on Saturday. After introducing himself, Supriyo said he would like an “amicable apology”.

Editor Rajagopal asked him what should the paper apologise for.

When the minister referred to the elbow complaint, the Editor told him the newspaper had not published any such report and categorically refused to apologise.

Supriyo reminded him that he was speaking to a “central minister”, to which the editor said it did not make any difference.

“I am not a gentleman, I am a journalist….You may be a central minister but I am also a citizen of this country,” Rajagopal told Supriyo.

The Editor said that at one point, the minister asked: “Are you sold out? Are you f***ing sold out?” The minister used at least one more expletive.

Later, Supriyo tweeted: Mr Rajagopal, the arrogant editor of @ttindia just abused me in filthy lingo on the telephone when I called him asking him to print an amicable small apology for falsely publishing a first page report accusing me of grabbing the shirt of a JU student when it’s the other way round.

Senior journalists were anguished over Supriyo’s behaviour with the Telegraph Editor. Others commended Editor Rajagopal for showing spine and not giving into the whims of a minister.

One of the users shamed Babul Supriyo by pointing out that as a singer, too, he mostly survived on copying other singers including Enrique and Kumar Sanu. He also shared Youtube links to corroborate his claims.

Kavita Krishnan egged on journalists to stand up to power and not parrot the government line. Others commended

However, the icing on the cake was a tweet in which a user took a dig at the “lost university degrees” of several BJP ministers in reference to Babul Supriyo visit to Jadavpur University.

“All said & done, at least Babul Supriyo is a BJP minister who can now say with proof that he went to a university.,” he tweeted.