Aaj Tak’s Sudhir Chaudhary booked for alleged misinformation on scheme for religious minorities

The Karnataka Police have booked Aaj Tak’s Consulting Editor Sudhir Chaudhary for allegedly spreading misinformation about a commercial vehicle subsidy scheme for religious minorities.

On Monday, Chaudhary ran a show on the Hindi news channel where he claimed that the Swavalambi Sarathi scheme by the Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation is not offered to Hindus. The scheme promises a subsidy of 50% or up to Rs 3 lakh to people from religious minorities with a household income less than Rs 4.5 lakh to purchase commercial vehicles.

Karnataka has classified Muslims, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Parsis as religious minorities.

Chaudhary said that the Congress government had said that the scheme would be made available to those from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but so far no such notification had been released.

However, currently, citizens from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Karnataka can avail of similar benefits through the Airavatha Scheme, under which the government assists them in taking up work with cab aggregators. The scheme also provides for a subsidy of Rs 5 lakh to buy a light motor vehicle.

Following Chaudhary’s show, Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge accused him of spreading misinformation.

“The anchor of Aaj Tak is deliberately spreading misinformation on Government schemes which was first started by BJP MPs...

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