Social media is probably the fastest way karma works in the 21st century. Prashant Bhushan is the newest example to prove this point. Bhushan who always make it a point to bash the government with his tweets every time claims tweeted earlier today stating the difference in the setup charges of the high-speed train in between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
He tweeted a comparison of costs of the Mumbai Ahmedabad Bullet train setup cost with that of Thailand Bullet train setup charges and tried to point out a huge gap in the proportions of the cost. He used NDTV article as reference. The NDTV article has smartly not mentioned the distance covered in the first phase of the construction.
The fact is that the budget released for Bullet train project for China is only for the first phase of the project which only covers 256kms. Whereas, the distance between Ahmedabad – Mumbai line is 508kms.
After few Twitter users showed the actual facts. Bhushan seems to have found out his error in figuring out the facts and numbers correctly. He apologized on Twitter for his misleading tweet. The tweet is quoted here.
But he has not deleted the previous tweet, which is still being retweeted by the propagandists ensuring that the fake news is spread as much as possible. At the point of writing this article, the tweet has received 1248 RTs whereas his apology tweet has received only 346 RTs.
And this looks like a coordinated attempt by a group of people to spread the misinformation regarding the bullet train project.
Earlier, AAP’s Arvind Jha had tweeted the same which is still not deleted.
This tweet has been retweeted by Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal who has a history of spreading fake information in the form of RTs without verifying the facts.
The others including Prashant Bhushan joined the bandwagon to spread the fake news which was later reproduced on many Facebook pages.
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