New Delhi, April 4: We all know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers the "Mann Ki Baat" on radio and it reaches a wide audience in India. In the year 2017, there was even a book that was released based on PM's talks and was titled "Mann Ki Baat: A Social Revolution on Radio." The book was launched on May 25, 2017 along with another book titled "Marching With a Billion: Analysing Narendra Modi's Government in Mid-Term" authored by journalist Uday Mahurkar. But a strange controversy has broken out after former minister Arun Shourie claimed on a news channel that Rajesh Jain, who is accredited as writer of the Mann Ki Baat book, is not actually the writer of the book.

In fact, Rajesh Jain has himself claimed that he has not written the book. "Rajesh Jain had absolutely nothing to do with this book (on Mann ki Baat)," former union minister Arun Shourie told NDTV. "He (Jain) is my friend. He told me he had been dragged into the (book release) function, given a speech to read," he added further as quoted by NDTV. Here is the video of the claim made by Arun Shourie :

Even Rajesh Jain has confirmed talking to NDTV that he has nothing to do with the book and doesn't know why his name is mentioned as the writer of the book. Rajesh confirmed that he was working with Bluekraft Digital Foundation which organised Prime Minister Modi's "Mann Ki Baat" when the book was released but asserted that he has not contributed in any way to the writing of the book let alone author the book on his own.

Rajesh Jain also told the channel that he is not aware about the reason for Press Information Bureau's (PIB) insistence on him presenting the book when he had not written it. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) had released three releases related to the book in which the first two releases mentioned that Rajesh Jain was the author of the book whereas the last release mentioned that he compiled the book "Mann Ki Baat". This news comes a day after the Information and Broadcasting Ministry introduced a circular that proposed penalising journalists for spreading or writing fake news, a circular that was scrapped after Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the circular to be cancelled and the PMO said that any censorship on fake news or press will have to be decided by the Press Council of India and relevant press bodies.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 04, 2018 01:07 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).