Saturday morning turned into a PR nightmare for Indian anchor and journalist Arnab Goswami as his private chat with the former Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta went viral.

According to the screenshots, the conversation between Dasgupta and Goswami hints that the latter had prior information about the 2019 Indian airstrike on Pakistan's Balakot, and the revocation of Article 370, which stripped Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir off of its special status as an autonomous state.

In the leaked chat, Arnab seems to have been rejoiced by the Modi government's response to the Pulwama attack and BJP's strategy to use it as an excuse to attack Pakistan. "This attack we have won like crazy," Goswami apparently told Gupta over the messages.

The revelations have caused a storm in the neighbouring country with many questioning how Republic TV editor had access to this information. Indian citizens have taken to Twitter to raise concerns over if 'Pulwama was a plot to win the polls".

Indian activist Samuel Annand took to Twitter to demand resignation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his tweet, he said:

"This whole #ArnabGoswami case should actually point at @narendramodi if Pulwama was pre-planned & then Balakot was for elections then he must resign NOW."

Shama Mohamed, the national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress, concluded in a tweet that the Modi government had been communicating crucial National Security decisions to Arnab. In her tweet, she said:

"#ArnabGoswami, by all accounts, had prior information about the Balakot airstrikes, 3 days before it happened. The BJP govt has apparently been communicating crucial National Security decisions to Arnab so that he can prepare in advance to boost his channel's TRPs. Despicable!"

These revelations came as a 500-page document of alleged chats of Republic TV's Arnab Goswami was allegedly leaked on social media in an on-going TRP scam case. Pakistan has long maintained that the Pulwama attack was a red flag operation conducted by the Indian government.

On 14 February 2019, 40 Indian security personnel lost their lives in a suicide attack near Pulwama in IIOJK.