By Karen Rebelo
News agency Press Trus of India (PTI) misreported on Sunday that gangster Atiq Ahmed was among six criminal-turned-politicians responsible for saving Manmohan Singh's United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and India's civil nuclear deal with the United States in 2008.
Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf Ahmed were talking to the media when three assailants opened fire at them on April 16, 2023 in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj. Atiq and Ashraf were being taken for medical examination on Saturday evening when three shooters, reportedly posing as media persons, shot them dead. The assassins, identified as Sunny Singh, Lavlesh Tiwari, and Arun Maurya, were apprehended immediately.
PTI's article was picked up by several news outlets such as NDTV, India Today, Aaj Tak, Amar Ujala, ABP Live, AsiaNet News, TV9 Hindi, TV9 Marathi, Jansatta and right-wing website OpIndia, which re-iterated the false claim.
PTI on Monday did another article saying the exact opposite to its earlier story when the claim was called out by a journalist on Twitter.
"On Sunday, a PTI report quoted from a book -- Baahubalis of Indian Politics: From Bullet to Ballot -- which claimed that Ahmed "dutifully cast his precious vote, no doubt in favour of the beleaguered UPA". The claim, however, is erroneous, according to the Parliament records," PTI's updated story said.
The misleading article was based on the book "Baahubalis of Indian Politics: From Bullet to Balot" by Rajesh Singh.
Note, BOOM has not independently verified the claims made in the book.
Quoting excerpts from the book, PTI reported that 48 hours before the vote the Singh-led government furloughed "six of the nation's most prominent suspected lawbreakers" to lend their support to the UPA government in a trust vote in July 2008.
"One among them was Ateeq Ahmed, a Samajwadi Party lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh, with a conspicuous handlebar moustache and a penchant for safari suits. He dutifully cast his precious vote, no doubt in favour of the beleaguered UPA. The don had, by then, established himself in both politics and crime," according to the book, PTI reported.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found the claim that Atiq Ahmed voted in support of the UPA government in a trust vote in July 2008 is false. Lok Sabha records show Ahmed in fact had voted against the Congress-led government in the trust vote.
Journalist Aarish Chhabra was the first to debunk the false claim, in a thread on Twitter on Monday.
UPA Government Won 2008 Trust Vote
On July 8, 2008 India's Left bloc, which included the Communist Part of India, Communist Part of India (Marxist), All India Forward Bloc, and the Revolutionary Socialist Party and which supported the Congress-led UPA government from the outside, withdrew its support over opposition to the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. Read more about it here and here.
The move left the UPA 44 seats short of the required 272 mark needed for a simple majority in the Lok Sabha.
The confidence vote was so crucial that MPs who were ill and in prison were summoned to take part in the vote, according to the BBC. The Congress-led government called upon support from the Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party to survive the vote.
The UPA government which initiated the confidence motion got a larger-than-expected 275 votes, against 256 votes, 10 MPs abstained from voting, on July 22, 2008 after a stormy two days in parliament.
Lok Sabha Records Show Atiq Ahmed Voted Against UPA
BOOM looked for records of the confidence motion in Lok Sabha's digital library. Click here to view.
The PDF document under the title 'Further discussion on the motion of confidence in the Council of Minister moved by Dr.Manmohan Singh on the 21st July, 2008' provides a transcript of the parliament discussion and the break-up of the trust vote.
The document shows Atiq Ahmed voted against the UPA government as his name is listed under the 'Noes' (those who voted against)
SP Had Expelled Atiq Ahmed For Voting Against UPA
News articles from July 2008 show the Samajwadi Party expelled six members for voting against the UPA government in the trust vote.
The members expelled were Jai Prakash (Mohanlalganj), S P Singh Baghel (Jalesar), Raj Narain Budholia (Hamirpur), Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur), Ateq Ahmed (Phulpur) and Munawwar Hasan (Muzaffarnagar), according to an Indian Express story dated July 25, 2008. Read more here.
