'Public Fund Being Used?' Cong Asks Centre Over Union Ministers' Interviews With Social Media Influencers

The Congress on Thursday sought answers from the Central government over appearances of union ministers with social media influencers and asked if the money on this is being spent from the public exchequer.

Congress social media head Supriya Shrinate launched the attack on the BJP-led government after three union ministers—S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal and Rajeev Chandrasekhar—appeared with YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia, better known as ‘Beer Biceps guy’ on the latter’s channel.

In a tweet, Shrinate said some of the big YouTube channels are interviewing government ministers in partnership with MyGov. “A few days ago, the government floated a tender in which it was proposed to appoint an agency to connect influential names of social and digital media with MyGov…,” she added.

The Congress leader alleged that the ministerial interviews were a garb for promoting BJP’s propaganda and asked if public money is being used for this purpose.

However, Viraj Sheth, the CEO of Monk Entertainment, clarified that they did not ask for a fee or were offered to be paid for these interviews. None of the political podcasts are a paid promotion, he said in a tweet while responding to a Twitter post on the issue.

Allahabadia’s YouTube channel has more than 5.5 million subscribers. In his video with EAM Jaishankar, the description reads “…voluntary, unpaid partnership focuses on active public engagement.”

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi also appeared with popular YouTubers Kamiya Jani from Curlytales and Samdish Bhati from Unfiltered by Samdish.