Asle Toje, the deputy leader of the Nobel Committee has rejected media reports of him calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the ‘biggest contender’ for this year’s Peace Prize as ‘fake news’.
Several media outlets on March 16 had reported that Toje had called the Indian prime minister the biggest contender for the Nobel Peace Prize praising his intervention in Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Journalist Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking portal Alt News however, pointed out that Asle Toje had denied making such a statement in an interview to news agency ANI.
In a video tweeted by Zubair, the deputy leader of the Nobel Committee said ‘a fake news tweet was sent out and I think we should treat it as fake news. It's fake. Let's not discuss it, give it energy or oxygen. I categorically deny that I said anything resembling what was in that tweet’.
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