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When Independent “Journo” Poonam Agarwal Peddled Half-Truths And Fake News Under The Garb Of “Investigation”

An independent “journalist called Poonam Agarwal who was associated with The Quint and NDTV earlier made far-fetching claims that the electoral bonds offered by SBI were problematic. Leftist media like The Wire, The News Minute, The Quint and her liberal fraternity carried her claims and pushed the propaganda.

In her articles and interviews, Poonam claimed that the SBI was sharing misleading information on Electoral Bonds as the purchase dates were not matching. She said she bought 2 Electoral Bonds of Rs 1,000 each in April 2018. But the data showed her name as a purchaser of electoral bonds dated 20 Oct 2020. She wondered if this was an error, inaccuracy or a namesake had purchased the bond. She claimed a unique hidden number in the data would’ve cleared doubts.

Netizens dug through her old videos on The Quint and found that she had indeed bought the bonds in 2020. When confronted, she claimed a “foggy memory” due to COVID!

In a video published on The Quint YouTube channel on 18 March 2024, she peddles half truths. She only talks about the unique numbers that are visible under UV light. But she does not reveal what the Supreme Court hearing said.

In a Supreme Court hearing on electoral bonds on 18 March 2024, the SBI made a significant revelation. Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing the SBI, disclosed that the bond numbers assigned by the banks are exclusively found on the bonds themselves and not elsewhere.

When questioned about the purpose of these bond numbers, whether they serve as a security measure or as part of an audit trail, the bank clarified that the primary function of the bond numbers is for security purposes. They distinguished that the audit trail serves a separate function.

Harish Salve’s submissions for SBI debunked leftist conspiracy theories, particularly those propagated by Poonam Agarwal. SBI clarified that the unique alphanumeric codes on bonds, visible under UV light, serve as a security measure, not for auditing. The revelation refutes claims by Poonam that these codes could link donors to political parties. 

A Look At Poonam’s Credibility Or The Lack Of It

Let’s peep into what Poonam has been doing over the years in the name of investigation. 

Spreading Fake News During COVID To Create Panic

During COVID, she spread lies that India was in stage 3 (Community spread) in March 2020 by bringing in a PhD as a medical doctor to spread fake news and panic in the country. 

Abetting Suicide Of Army Jawan

One of the “stories” she broke destroyed a family entirely. She did a fake sting operation on Lance Naik Roy Mathew where he was “criticising the Sahayak system”. Mathew ended up taking his life by suicide after that interview video went viral. Poonam was booked for abetting Mathew’s suicide. 

Her most recent “investigation” has taken her credibility down further. It is ironic that she received the Ramnath Goenka award in January 2020 for her “relentless coverage on electoral bonds” raising questions on the credibility of the award itself.

This award came after Poonam was booked for abetting the suicide of Army jawan Roy Mathew. However, this FIR was quashed by Bombay HC stating she was “wrongly implicated”.

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