In a first major setback to Arnab Goswami, a business reporter working for his newly launched channel Republic has resigned reportedly on ‘ethical grounds.’

The development has taken place in little over a week of the channel’s launch.

Narula, who has previously worked as a business reporter and anchor with ET Now, CNN-IBN and WION, was not available for comments. But sources close to her said that she had quit Republic on ‘ethical grounds.’

Said a source, “Of course Arnab would like the world to believe that he fired her, but that’s expected.”

Other sources in the channel said that many other editorial and technical staff had put in their papers as working with ‘Arnab became unbearable.’

Republic has not reacted to the story as our efforts to elicit a response from the channel proved futile.

Goswami’s channel has run into many controversies since its launch on 6 May. Goswami was widely condemned for publicly insulting a Congress spokesperson after the latter called one of the channel’s anchors ‘a BJP journalist.’

Goswami had called Brijesh Kalappa ‘worm’ and a ‘lapdog’ of the Gandhi family.

A day later, a Samajwadi Party spokesperson had asked Goswami on LIVE TV if the channel had taken money from the BJP.

Republic TV is funded by the NDA MP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and known BJP supporter and former Infosys executive, Mohandas Pai.

On Monday, the News Broadcasters Association had written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India accusing the channel of indulging in gross malpractices to boost its viewership.

In the run-up to its launch the channel had carried out a massive campaign against the Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi, and Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal. Goswami had come under considerable social media ridicule for not raising any questions against either Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his party, the BJP.