'Issue Closed': Parliamentary Panel After Meta Apologises For Zuckerberg's 2024 Election Remark

New Delhi: BJP leader Nishikant Dubey on Wednesday said he treated the matter of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks on Indian elections as "closed" after an official of the social networking platform tendered an apology.

Zuckerberg, in a podcast, had claimed that the incumbent government in India lost power in the 2024 elections due to its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meta India vice president Shivnath Thukral apologised for Zuckerberg's remarks and said it was an "inadvertent error".

"A Meta India official has finally apologised for the mistake. This is a victory of the common citizens of India," Dubey, who chairs the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology, said in a post on X.

Dubey had on Tuesday said that the panel will summon the firm following its chairman's comments that India's ruling dispensation lost the Lok Sabha election last year.

On Wednesday, Dubey said people elected Narendra Modi as prime minister for the third consecutive term which was a testimony to his strong leadership.

"Now the responsibility of our committee ends on this issue. We treat this issue closed. However, we will continue to hold these social platforms to account in the future on other issues," Dubey told PTI.

Earlier, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had called out the remarks made by Zuckerberg on the Joe Rogan podcast. "Mr. Zuckerberg's claim that most incumbent governments, including India in 2024 elections, lost post-COVID is factually incorrect," Vaishnaw had said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on January 13.

"As the world's largest democracy, India conducted the 2024 elections with over 640 million voters. People of India reaffirmed their trust in NDA led by PM @narendramodi Ji's leadership," said Vaishnaw, who is Minister for Information and Broadcasting as well as IT.

The minister had debunked Zuckerberg's remarks as misinformation, and made it clear that Meta must uphold facts and credibility.

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