Prasar Bharati under fire for skipping Messi’s Hyderabad event featuring Rahul

New Delhi: The Opposition accused public broadcaster Prasar Bharati of political bias after its OTT platform Waves skipped the Hyderabad leg of Lionel Messi’s “GOAT India Tour” from its announced live coverage schedule, even as the football icon’s other three city appearances were to be streamed free.

The charge comes after a NewsDrum report pointed out that Waves OTT had promoted a “three cities, three nights” live plan covering Kolkata (December 13), Mumbai (December 14) and Delhi (December 15), but made no mention of Hyderabad, where Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were scheduled to attend Saturday’s event at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.

Quoting the NewsDrum story on X, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa launched a sharp attack on Prasar Bharati, calling the omission an example of “sheer pettiness” and “blatant control”.

“Democracy weakens when institutions lose their spine,” Bajwa wrote, alleging that “skipping Hyderabad while streaming Messi everywhere else exposes how Prasar Bharati now functions”. 

He claimed that under the current dispensation, “the line between public service and party propaganda has vanished”, and added that “if Rahul Gandhi and Revanth Reddy appear, the lens is withdrawn”, terming it an “Orwellian distortion of truth”.

Sheer pettiness. Blatant control.

Democracy weakens when institutions lose their spine.

Skipping Hyderabad while streaming Messi everywhere else exposes how Prasar Bharati now functions.
Under the @BJP4India, the line between public service and party propaganda has vanished.… https://t.co/TGpMY5gfFz

— Partap Singh Bajwa (@Partap_Sbajwa) December 13, 2025

NewsDrum had earlier reported, citing multiple political leaders in Telangana, that the government-run platform’s decision to leave out Hyderabad had triggered speculation that the visuals from the city would inevitably feature both the Telangana chief minister and Gandhi sharing the frame with Messi, and could therefore have uncomfortable political optics for the Centre.

Political rivals quoted in the NewsDrum story alleged privately that a live public broadcast of these moments on a central government platform, two days before Messi’s reported meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi, could have allowed clips of Gandhi and the Argentine star to dominate social media and news cycles.

However, PM Modi on Monday embarked on a visit to Jordan, Ethiopia and Oman -- countries which enjoy civilizational ties and exceptional bilateral relations with India.

Prasar Bharati and Waves OTT have not issued any clarification so far on why the Hyderabad leg was missing from the announced livestream schedule.

The controversy has once again put the spotlight on editorial independence and neutrality at state-funded broadcasters. While Prasar Bharati is mandated by law to function as an autonomous public service broadcaster, opposition parties have repeatedly accused it of favouring the ruling dispensation in its news and event coverage.