India politics: Nitin Gadkari serves legal notice to Congress, alleges interview 'twisted, distorted'

India's ruling Bhartiya Janta Party's (BJP) leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari sent a legal notice to Congress party general secretary Jairam Ramesh and president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday (Mar 1) for sharing a "twisted, distorted" version of one of his interviews on social media platform X.

Minister Gadkari said that a 19-second audio and visual clipping of one of his interviews was posted by Congress which was "concealing the contextual intent and meaning" of what he said.

He said that the "sinister act" was carried out by the Opposition with the sole intent to "fan and create confusion, sensation and disrepute" to him.

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Gadkari gives Congress 24 hours to remove the post, submit a written apology

The 66-year-old political leader has asked Congress to pull down the post "within 24 hours of receipt of this legal notice" and also asked the party to submit a written apology in the next three days.

The minister called the video clip as factually incorrect and said that it was Congress leaders' "intentional attempt" to "insult and demean" him, "coupled with your intent to provoke members of Bhartiya Janata Party to develop ideological rift".

He further stated that the video clip has led to"big reputation damage, defamation and great loss of credibility".

"The interview has also been twisted, distorted and presented on your microblogging site 'X' wall by uploading the above video which is bereft and devoid of contextual meaning," read the notice sent by Gadkari to the Congressgeneral secretary Jairam Ramesh.

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In the video clip shared by Congress on X, Gadkari is heardsaying, "Villages, poor, labourers and farmers are unhappy...The villages do not have good roads, there is no water to drink, there are no good hospitals, there are no good schools".

The Cabinet Minister of Road Transport and Highways claimed that the parts of the interview in which he talked about the amount of efforts being made to improve the living standard and the positiveresults it is yielding during the tenure of the present government at the centrewere clipped by the Congress.

"(They) deliberately posted the Hindi captions and video by concealing the contextual meaning of the interaction which is deliberate and malicious to malign the reputation (of the minister)," Gadkari said.

The Congress has not yet responded to the notice.

(With inputs from agencies)