A day after the departure of ABP News Network Managing Editor Milind Khandekar, it has emerged that fellow journalist Punya Prasun Bajpai also quit the news organisation. Bajpai confirmed his resignation to Scroll.in on Thursday, but said he would not elaborate on the details.

Bajpai hosted a primetime show called Masterstroke.

14 years & 8 days later it’s time to move on. Today was my last day as Managing Editor @abpnewstv . Thank you for being part of my journey so far. — Milind Khandekar (@milindkhandekar) August 1, 2018

ABP News Network has not issued a statement about the depatures. But Avinash Pandey, the ABP News chief operating officer, told exchange4media that Khandekar had been instrumental in shaping and strengthening the editorial structure at the organisation “His service has been indeed much valuable to the organisation,” Pandey said. “It has been an honor working with a wonderful colleague like him all these past years. We wish him boundless success in all his future endeavors.”

The moves within the newsroom have made waves far beyond the journalism community. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewal said on Twitter that the resignations were the result of an attempt to “suppress truth being spoken to power”.

Operation - ABP News Channel

‘Kamal’



Executor - Shri Narender Modi,

Shri Amit Shah.



Objective -Suppress ‘truth being

spoken to power’.



Outcome -Remove Punay Prasoon Vajpayee, Milind Khandekar, Abhisar & others

1/2 — Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) August 2, 2018

In Parliament, Trinamool Congress MP Derek OBrien spoke of pressure on journalists.

Last month, the channel elicted strong comments from the government for a story on Masterstroke in the wake of a video interaction Prime Minister Narendra Modi held on June 20 with beneficiaries of various government programmes. A participant from Chhattisgarh, Chandramani Kaushik, told Modi on the show said that her income had doubled after she switched from cultivating paddy to growing custard apples.

But Masterstroke said that the woman had been tutored to make false claims.

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The programme gained wider attention when Congress President Rahul Gandhi tweeted a clip of it.

PM जी अपनी मन की बात सुनाते हैं यह तो सभी जानते थे। आज यह मालूम पड़ रहा है कि वह सिर्फ अपने ही मन की बात सुनना भी चाहते हैं । pic.twitter.com/dEqvklqtRR — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 9, 2018

The programme was criticised by number of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Rajyavardhan Rathore, the minister of state for information and broadcasting. He alleged that journalists had been driven by an agenda to oppose Narendra Modi.

Some media houses have unapologetically aligned themselves to the agenda of deriding PM @narendramodi 's efforts by all means. Despicable! The real story of Chhattisgarh's farmer women who rubbished the claims of a section of media #UnfortunateJournalism https://t.co/4E8S9mwRDZ — Rajyavardhan Rathore (@Ra_THORe) July 9, 2018

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also tweeted her criticism of the story.

It was clear from the first instance that the conversation was about sitaphal cultivation, wasn’t it? The lady farmer Chandramani also picks up the box of sitaphal to show it to the @PMOIndia . Oh, why, why this #UnfortunateJournalism ? https://t.co/JzuNAUkxHo — Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) July 9, 2018

ABP News sent a reporter back to the woman’s village to re-investigate. “This is ABP News’ response to the questions you have raised,” they tweeted on Monday night, addressing the ministers who had dubbed their report “fake news”.

Following this episode, BJP officials began to boycott the channel, people familiar with the network said.

In addition, Twitter users had complained that they had been unable to get access to ABP news at the time when Masterstroke, Bajpai’s show, was being aired. People familiar with the network said disturbances in the channel’s signal began around July 13.

“Things began to change after the first week of July,” said a senior journalist in the channel who did not want to be identified. “We persisted with whatever we were doing. For us, news is news. But we are living through polarised times, where whatever you do is seen as pro-Modi, anti-Modi.”

On July 17, Bajpai congratulated those powerful persons who were able to disrupt even the satellite signal during the transmission of his programme.

अभी तक सुना था क़ानून के हाथ लंबे होते है..

आज पता चला कोई दूसरा भी है, जिसके हाथ सैटेलाइट तक पहुँच जाते है..

और “मास्टरस्ट्रोक” के वक्त सिग्नल ग़ायब हो जाता है...

इन ताक़तवर हाथो को बधाई.. pic.twitter.com/Y2vGUgJQRL — punya prasun bajpai (@ppbajpai) July 17, 2018

Many other users commented on the signal being disrupted.

#मास्टरस्ट्रोक के वक्त सिंग्नल नही आना,

इस बात का प्रमाण है कि.



बाकई साहिब का टॉवर जड़ तक हिला है.?

Well done sir @ppbajpai



❓ वो अपने गिरेबां में झाँकता कम है

वो फेंकता जियदा हैं सच बोलता कम है?

तुम उस खामोश सख्स पे तंज़ मत करना

वो मन की बोलता जियदा है सुनता कम है? pic.twitter.com/3fbgpFAd8l — M.A. Khan (@AsfakKh89305536) July 18, 2018

On July 23, Bajpai said that the channel would keep telling the truth despite the alleged blocks – “You will black out the screen during Masterstroke, but we will treat that as the ‘black board’ and write the truth on it.”

आप “मास्टरस्ट्रोक “ के स्क्रीन को ब्लैक करोगे..

हम उसे “ब्लैक बोर्ड” मान कर सच लिख देगें...

( मिलते है 9 बजे ) — punya prasun bajpai (@ppbajpai) July 23, 2018

On July 26, Bajpai tweeted that instead of paying any attention to starvation deaths, unemployment, farmer suicides, clean air and water, the focus seemed only to be on disrupting the signals of his programme, Masterstroke.

भूख से मौत पर ध्यान नहीं

बेरोज़गारी पर ध्यान नहीं

किसानों की ख़ुदकुशी पर ध्यान नहीं

साफ़ पानी/हवा पर ध्यान नहीं

ध्यान सिर्फ़ “मास्टरस्ट्रोक” के वक़्त सिग्नल ग़ायब करने पर... — punya prasun bajpai (@ppbajpai) July 26, 2018

Thereafter, Bajpai took to tweeting out the videos of his programme. On July 30, a journalist from The Print tagged Tata Sky in his tweet about the blackout, asking for an explanation.

Didn't believe earlier when some friends told me that every day at 9 PM, the telecast of Masterstroke by @ppbajpai at @abpnewstv gets disturbed. Witnessed it today by myself. @TataSky do you have any answer. pic.twitter.com/XfPOYos2zK — Kumar Anshuman (@anshumanscribe) July 30, 2018

When others joined in and asked the same question, Tata Sky responded that the problem seemed intermittently to be at the ABP end.

Hi, the issue is intermittently from ABP-Broadcaster’s end. In meantime, we have registered your query. Allow us some time to resolve the same. — Tata Sky (@TataSky) July 30, 2018

Airtel confirmed the same.

Hi! Kindly take a note, the issue you are facing in this particular matter is from the broadcaster's end. Let us know if we can help you with anything else. -Theophilus — Bharti Airtel India (@Airtel_Presence) August 1, 2018

This seemed to make it even more confusing.

Between 9 and 10 pm for last 10 days, signal of @ppbajpai show on @abpnewstv would go to black, start blinking. This is the most outrageous use of state power to interfere with media indep. And yet,no one, including the channel, dares speak out! इतना सन्नाटा क्यों? किसका डर है? — Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) August 2, 2018

While Bajpai resigned on Thursday, another journalist at the network, Abhisar Sharma, has gone on leave.

Updated on August 3, 11 pm

Scroll.in has been able to confirm, after conversations with multiple personnel in the channel, the following sequence of events that led to the resignations. These accounts corroborate what the Wire, followed by the Newslaundry, have reported.

ABP insiders said that while the pressure over Khandekar intensified after the Chhattisgarh report, it reached a breaking point soon after Abhisar Sharma’s show, Aaj Ki Badi Khabar, went live on July 30.

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Sharma began the show by juxtaposing a shootout in a crowded restaurant in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh on July 29 with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state on the same day. While Modi had talked about the improving law and order situation in Lucknow and the state, and announced investments worth thousands of crores, Sharma said the Sultanpur incident revealed the hollowness of these claims.

It was at this point that the channel’s executive director and chief executive officer Atideb Sarkar stormed into the newsroom, ABP insiders said. Sarkar publicly questioned the need to link Modi’s name with this incident, these insiders said, and repeatedly demanded that Sharma be immediately taken off air, while Khandekar asked him to discuss the matter in a close-door conversation, pointing out that it was not possible to take an anchor off air midway through a live programme.

This showdown, insiders said, was a culmination of Khandekar’s refusal to restrain or remove Bajpai. The management, under pressure from the ruling establishment, had earlier raised objections even to Sharma’s video blogs on Facebook, apart from his work on the channel, demanding that he refrain from criticising the government of the day, these insiders said.

The next day, Sharma was grounded for 15 days. But Bajpai’s show was as hard-hitting as before on July 31. Insiders say there was increasing pressure on Khandekar to restrain Bajpai, but he chose to resign the day after, on August 1, and Bajpai followed on August 2.

Scroll.in has sent Sarkar a questionnaire and will update this story if he responds.

On July 31, Sharma announced on Facebook that he had been named this year’s journalist of the year by Delhi’s Hindi Academy. On August 2, he posted the following as his response to the honour.

Rough translation: