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| Smriti Irani's Straight Talk - Video clips of combative interview with Barkha Datt goes viral |
May 28, 2016, NewsCrunch
A nasty squabble broke out between Union Minister Smriti Irani and and NDTV star journalist Barkha Datt during the channel's show The Big Interview.
While both kept their voices low and resorted to nervous laughter, it was a no holds barred tussle between them.
The highlight of the debate, which the edited clip below shows, was Smriti Irani saying she knew Barkha Datt was not sexually inclined towards the female kind, forcing the journalist to clarify the question she had asked.
It went off like this:
Smriti Irani accuses Barkha Datt of leading attacks on right-wing women online.
Barkha Datt asks if she has ever targeted anybody or made a sexual slur on anybody.
Smriti Irani latches on to the latter part of the statement. She says she knows that Barkha Datt does not have an inclination towards the female kind. "That is my understanding, so you would not make a sexual slur on a woman," she adds.
That forced Barkha Datt to clarify what she meant by not making a sexual slur on the women. She said she had never insinuated that anyone had loose morals or slept her way to the top.
"What I mean is, I never done character assassination... don't your supporters do it... we can go on and on,"she said.
Smriti Irani's gripe was that giving an interview to NDTV would upset her supporters and fraternity. The channel was genetically designed to be loaded in favour of Congress or Left and had only been demonising the BJP leadership, especially Modi, she said.
The interview looked less like a formal Q and A and more like one upwomanship game with both interrupting the other, by trying to get their point across.
At one stage of the interview, Smriti Irani said, "I think the interview about me and not you.""...But you said so many things about me, I have to respond, said Barkha Datt.