A senior correspondent belonging to one of the prominent ‘neutral’ Tamil news channel Puthiya Thalaimurai, was caught peddling fake news saying that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had refused to meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami citing budget consultation work.
Niranjan Kumar who works as a senior correspondent at Puthiya Thalaimurai put out a tweet on January 19 in which he claimed that a request for meeting Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was made from Chief Minister Palaniswami side and that the former’s office had refused to give time saying the Minister was busy with budget consultations.
However, the Finance Minister’s Office clarified that no such request was placed on behalf of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and called out the Puthiya Thalaimurai’s journalist tweet as false.
மாண்புமிகு தமிழக முதல்வர் சார்பில் நிதி அமைச்சரை சந்திக்க கால அவகாசம் கேட்டு எந்த கோரிக்கையும் இந்த அலுவலகத்தில் வைக்கப்படவில்லை. தவரான செய்தி.@pibchennai https://t.co/LQ9dN9SZdj
— NSitharamanOffice (@nsitharamanoffc) January 19, 2021
This is not the first time Puthiya Thalaimurai has peddled fake news about Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In 2018, the ‘neutral’ Tamil news channel put out a news card in which it had misquoted the Minister.
“Did students die only because of the NEET exam is something that is questionable?”, Puthiya Thalaimurai had published. The Minister then too had called out that fake news peddled by the channel.
#FakeNewsAlert pic.twitter.com/vIGDT6DR1F
— Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) June 8, 2018