News CM used to target Sonia born nowhere

Daily 'sourced' it from a news agency, which says it never filed the story.

The controversial news item Chief Minister Narendra Modi waved while speaking at Swami Vivekananda Yuva Vikas Yatra at Bhavnagar and Amreli on Monday has now been disowned by with the paper that published it and the agency that reportedly sourced it.

The news item was published in a Gujarati daily, Jaihind, on July 12, 2012.

When contacted, the daily's editor, Yashwant Shah, said the news item was sourced from a local agency, Hindustan Samachar.

Hindustan Samachar bureau chief Bhupat Parikh, however, denied his agency had ever circulated the news item that said the central government spent around Rs 1,880 crore on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's foreign jaunts.

Parikh told The Indian Express, "The story that appeared in July 12, 2012 edition of Jai Hind is not my story at all." He also asked why there was no credit given to the story if it was his.

Shah, on his part, evaded a reply.

The article in question had quoted a Haryana-based RTI activist Ramesh Verma as having got this information from the central government in response to one of his applications filed under RTI.

Parikh joined Hindustan Samachar agency in Delhi in 1965. After the agency was shut down during Emergency in 1975, Parikh shifted to his hometown of Ahmedabad and started his own news agency by the same name.

He has been operating it single-handedly since then and claims he has over 80 subscribers in the state, all Gujarati language publications. He has no English language subscribers.

There are three other Gujarati language news agencies operating out of Ahmedabad.

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