TRAI rejects Congress's charges of SMS censorship on Maharashtra 'poll fraud' allegations

New Delhi: TRAI on Monday said it did not receive any application that pertained to sending SMS to a political party's Maharashtra cadre on how the 2024 Assembly election was allegedly 'stolen', as the regulator asserted that it doesn't even approve individual SMS templates. TRAI's rebuttal came after Congress on Sunday claimed that the TRAI rejected its application for sending out SMSes to its Maharashtra cadre with the link of a documentary on how Maharashtra assembly elections were allegedly "stolen" on the grounds that it is "content related to protest". Without naming Congress, TRAI in a post on X said, "No application was received by #TRAI for sending SMS to a political party's Maharashtra cadre on how the 2024 Assembly election was ‘stolen’". TRAI pointed out that the said application was submitted to one of the service providers, who rejected it. "TRAI was at no stage involved in this process. In fact, TRAI does not deal with approval of individual message templates," the regulator clarified in a series of social media posts.

TRAI doesn't approve individual SMS templates, it said, tagging a screenshot of the rejection by ‘STPL', a service provider. "As per the photo, it is clear that it was rejected by the service provider, STPL," TRAI wrote in its post hash-tagged '#FactCheck'. Congress had also claimed that the rejection indicated "telltale signs of guilt of Maharashtra election fraud" and there were coordinated moves by various arms of the government to suppress information. Chairman of Congress's data analytics department Praveen Chakravarty had said the Congress wanted to send SMSes to its Maharashtra cadre of the link to the YouTube documentary "How the MH 2024 election was stolen", and as per government process, an application was filed with TRAI for approval. He had claimed TRAI rejected permission to send SMSes, saying it is 'protest content'. "How is there such perfect synchronisation between Home Ministry, Election Commission & Telecom regulator to suppress? Does one need more telltale signs of guilt of Maharashtra election fraud than such coordinated moves by various arms of the government to suppress & hide information?" Chakravarty had said on X.