Apologise for CEO's remarks or face action: BJP MP Nishikant Dubey to Meta

A parliamentary panel is considering summoning social media firm Meta's top officials over its CEO Mark Zuckerberg's remarks that the incumbent government in India lost the 2024 election owing to its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, the chairperson of the parliamentary committee on communications and information technology, said the panel will soon summon Meta over Zuckerberg's statement.



"My committee will summon Meta over the false information. Misinformation about any democratic country tarnishes the image of the country. That organisation will have to apologise to the Indian Parliament and the people for this mistake," Dubey said in a post on X.

Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw refuted Zuckerberg's reported remarks in a podcast that in elections around the world in 2024, most incumbent governments, including the one in India, had been voted out of power.


Dubbing Zuckerberg's remarks alarming, Dubey said that India is a vibrant democracy and that after independence the BJP government is only the second such government which has been elected by the people for the third time.

"His statement shows that he is interfering with India's democracy and is misleading the world by giving wrong information that BJP-NDA has lost...We have decided that we will summon the people of Meta or else action will be recommended by the committee," he said.

The decisions of parliamentary panels including the deposition of public and private entities are taken by the committee chairperson after consulting panel members.