JNU Videos Doctored: Smriti Irani’s Close Aide in the Eye of Storm

Smriti Irani’s aide Shilpi Tiwari faces heat online over doctored JNU videos.

Shilpi Tiwari (L) and Smriti Irani (R). (Photo: The Quint)

A close aide of Union HRD minister Smriti Irani is allegedly behind the circulation of one of the ‘doctored’ JNU videos, according to The News Minute. At least two out of the seven video clips of alleged ‘anti-national’ sloganeering in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) captured on 9 and 11 February are believed to have been ‘doctored’, PTI reported earlier.

Shilpi Tiwari, said to be closely associated with Smriti Irani was actively involved over the past week in promoting the alleged fake videos on social media, The News Minute report said. Tiwari was also the campaign manager for Irani during the Lok Sabha election in Amethi.

The report said the second video shared online by Shilpi had ‘discrepancies’ in the lip sync as the audio and video streams were from different sources and “merged with an intention to make these recordings appear as representations of true events.”

Arrested JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar (Photo: AP)

Following news of Shilpi’s involvement, there was massive outrage on Twitter. Tiwari reportedly deactivated her account temporarily on Tuesday night. Her account came back online later, but she has not tweeted since 27 February.

Shilpi Tewari continued to trend on Wednesday as Twitter seems to be divided between those who are lambasting the woman, and those who stand by her.

What has also come to light is that qualification requirements were allegedly relaxed to have Shilpi Tiwari appointed as a consultant by the HRD Ministry ‘at a fee of Rs 35,000 per month.’

The meeting note below is now being widely shared on Twitter in the wake of the revelation of Tewari’s alleged involvement in doctoring Kanhaiya Kumar’s video.

Picture courtesy: Saikat Dutta’s Twitter page

Picture courtesy: Saikat Dutta’s Twitter page