The prominent media company, India Today sacked its deputy general manager Indranil Chatterjee for posting an offensive Facebook post about president-elect Draupadi Murmu that has gone viral online. Indranil Chatterjee, who claims to be Deputy General Manager in the India Today Group, posted disrespectful, racist and derogatory statements stating that he doesn’t support a tribal president.

Indranil wrote in the post, “Just as I don’t support Gay marriage, similarly I don’t support an Adivasi President.” Insulting the president-elect, he wrote, “Few chairs are not meant for “All” & have a dignity attached to them. Do we allow a sweeper to perform Durga Puja? Can a Hindu teach at a Madrasah? These are nothing but cheap socio-political gimmicks of the ruling party in creating a Rubber Stamp Constitutional Head so that laws can be passed easily showing the middle finger to the Opposition parties.”

Indranil said, in reference to the position of President of India, “Today we have humiliated not only that Chair of Raisina Hills but also some great souls like APJ Abdul Kalam, Pranab Mukherjee, S. Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, Rajendra Prasad & the like.”

After his Facebook post gained widespread attention on the platform, Indranil deleted his account.

Meanwhile, the India Today group sacked him for derogatory remarks against President-elect. India Today CEO Dinesh Bhatia in an internal mail to their colleagues mentioned, “We regret to bring to your attention that last night a member of our Kolkata sales staff put out an extremely derogatory post on his personal Facebook account. The post was hurtful and against the basic principles of human decency. When asked for an explanation, the employee admitted to his momentary lapse of judgement. He apologised unconditionally and said he had already deleted the post within a few minutes.”

It further stated, “However, this was a grave breach of the India Today Group’s Code of Conduct. The employee’s services were terminated with immediate effect last night. The India Today Group does not condone such actions. We uphold the highest standards of ethics and professional decorum.”

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