On August 17, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its revamped social media team, appointing Deepak Mhaskey as the national social media convenor, and Priti Gandhi, Shivanand Dwivedi, Alok Bhatt and Arun Yadav as co-convenors.

While curiosity grew as to who these newly appointed individuals were and their past work and association with the party, social media users were quick to notice that immediately after the announcement, Gandhi, Dwivedi and Yadav made their X accounts private and there was no trace of Bhatt on the internet.

While all the other IT cell members are back to being active on X, albeit after deleting hundreds of thousands of old posts, Alok Bhatt is the only one in the group whose X handle remains inaccessible or ‘protected’ even a month after the new team was announced.

The only remnants of Bhatt’s online presence are the now-disabled X account, screenshots from his X posts and some articles in Right-wing outlets like OpIndia, Organiser and Swarajya. 

Alt News found that in the past, Bhatt had been called out for controversial tweets several times. In archived screenshots of his posts from the past, the BJP functionary can be seen using sexist, Islamophobic, and derogatory language, some of which can be seen below:

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Who is Alok Bhatt?

Bhatt, who claims to hail from Dehradun, has worn many hats over the course of his career. According to his LinkedIn profile, he graduated from Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University (HNBGU) in Uttarakhand and went on to work with several organisations, including NIIT University, where he served as financial controller until April 2010.

In 2010, he founded Nature Connect Outdoors — an education and adventure non-profit organisation that deals in outdoor education and skill development, including treks, camping, and rafting expeditions. According to the website’s bio, Bhatt had “shunned his corporate career” to follow his passion, which culminated in the formation of the NGO. The organisation is still functional. 

Alok Bhatt (outlined in red) at an event for Nature Connect with actor Sushant Singh

According to details available on Zauba Corp, Bhatt is a Chartered Accountant (CA) and the partner of a firm of CAs called RSAC & CO LLP, incorporated in May 2021. 

Bhatt has also served as the economic adviser to former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. However, it’s not clear when he was appointed and when exactly his tenure ended. He wrote an article for Firstpost defending the ministry of housing and urban affairs over the controversial Central Vista project. The author bio designated him as ‘Economic Advisor’ to Rawat.

In 2020, after a district officer’s press release promoting inter-caste and interfaith marriages drew criticism from social media users, Bhatt had reportedly tweeted: “No one from the government has spoken in support of promoting interfaith marriages. No one in the BJP government in their wildest dreams will support anything that is made out here.”

We sent an email and called up Bhatt several times to know more from him, but he did not respond.

Long-standing Association With BJP

Bhatt’s X handle, @alok_bhatt, was followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In fact, Modi quote-tweeted one of Bhatt’s posts in 2024, where he urged people to watch the film Sabarmati Report.

Bhatt was also invited to PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in the past. In 2024, Right-wing influencer Vikas Pandey shared an image with Bhatt alongside former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, member of the economic advisory council to the PM, Sanjeev Sanyal, and others, with the caption “First swearing in”.

We also found an X post from 2015 where Bhatt can be seen with the Prime Minister.

In April 2022, Right-wing influencer Shefali Vaidya, who has been fact-checked by Alt News several times in the past, posted an image with Bhatt on X saying that she had met the latter in Uttarakhand.

X Handle Suspended for Violating Guidelines

Alt News found at least three instances, in 2018, 2019, and 2020, where X (then Twitter) had initiated action against Bhatt’s handle for violation of community guidelines, and at least two of those three actions were owing to hateful content.

In 2018, Bhatt declared that all the “killers of Pandits, Rapists of Pandits, Terrorists killing in Kashmir, instigators of Godhra, and bombers of Mumbai were all Muslims, and thus Islam was the problem”. His account had then been ‘limited’.

In 2019, Bhatt declared in a post that “their boys could take on Jihadis” but needed police action for “rumour mongers” like activist Shehla Rashid. “These jihadi accomplices are running a hate campaign aided and abetted by Media…please help our state dispel rumours,” the tweet read. His account was suspended after this. Political analyst and Right-wing influencer Suresh Nakhua took to Twitter to condemn the move.

His account was suspended again in 2020.

The Pamphlet-Savitr Analytics-Alok Bhatt Connection

In 2022, Bhatt took on a directorial role at Savitr Analytics Media and Research Foundation, a company that was incorporated in April 26 that year, with Bhatt and Ashish Nautiyal initially named as directors. According to documents filed with the Union ministry of corporate affairs (MCA), Bhatt holds 9,500 shares, or 95 per cent of the company, while Nautiyal holds the remaining 500 shares, or 5 per cent.

Interestingly, Nautiyal is also the founding editor of the Right-wing media outlet, The Pamphlet.

Savitr Analytics has no website or online presence. We went through its financial records filed with the MCA for the financial years 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, and found that it was registered as a Section 8 company, i.e., a non-profit. In the 2024-25 financial year, its total revenue from operations was Rs 2.7 crore.

The organisation’s revenue across all three years comes from ‘sale of services’, and the rows for ‘Grants or donations received (relevant for Sec 8 companies)’, present in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 filings, are left blank in 2022-23 and 2023-24. In 2024-25, the row does not exist.

The figures are in hundreds

Under ‘Corporate Information’, they state ‘Research and awareness about Indian culture and heritage…’, ‘Promotion of commerce, art, science, sports, education, research, social welfare, religion, charity, and environmental protection…’ and ‘Advancement of education, learning, and skills development…’ as their activities.

There was a category called ‘professional expenses’ in the 2022-23 filing that was later relabeled as ‘content production expenses’. Rs. 41,48,600 was spent in the first year, Rs. 95,36,600 (filed directly as content production expenses) was spent in the second year, and Rs. 1,38,53,200 (also filed directly as content production expenses) was spent in the third year.

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Next, we found that an individual named Ridhika Aggarwal stated on LinkedIn that she worked as a content writer for Savitr Analytics Media and Research Foundation until August 2023. We went through her X timeline (linked to her LinkedIn profile) and found that she wrote at least three articles for The Pamphlet during her tenure at Savitr. None of the articles are currently available on the website.

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Ridhika is also listed as a non-official member of a steering committee formed by the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change in 2023.

The Pamphlet, previously known as The Indian Affairs, posted for the first time on Facebook in April 2022, which is the same time when Savitr Analytics was incorporated.

The Pamphlet claims to “cut through the noise of the modern information ecosystem by offering readers and viewers clarity, depth and perspective on issues that shape India and the world.” Its reports have seem to be echoing pro-BJP narratives. An August 11 video report, for instance, was captioned: “Questions raised in the public domain regarding the credentials of two CJP leaders, Abhijeet Dipke and Saurav Das, have brought up several serious concerns”. It questioned Dipke’s Boston University degree, academic timeline and funding, as well as Das’ property, tenancy, rent, police verification, and electoral records.

During the CJP protests, another report took a swipe at Mohammed Junaid, who had been feeding protesters, with the reporter noting that “such bhaijaans were also seen” at the protest sites in Shaheen Bagh and Farmers’ stir. Thumbnails of these reports carried AI-generated visuals of individuals critical of the Union government, their faces distorted through AI to portray them in a negative light. This is a tactic common across Right-wing outlets and social media troll handles.

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More recently, the outlet, alongside Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, Law Beat, The Jaipur Dialogues and The Sunday Guardian, was summoned by the Delhi high court over a Rs 2 crore privacy suit by Cockroach Janta Party spokesperson Saurav Das, who alleged that they had disclosed his home address and other personal details online.

The video below depicts a time when the outlet was still called The Indian Affairs, and Nautiyal (in striped shirt) can be seen with his colleagues alongside educator Pawan Gupta.

Nautiyal’s last video with The Pamphlet was uploaded in December 2024. In June 2025, Nautiyal was pictured with the OpIndia team. His first video for OpIndia, an interview with Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Dhami, came a month later, in July 2025.

Nautiyal is now the multimedia & digital head and editor at OpIndia, and is no longer listed as a director of Savitr on the MCA website.

It is worth noting that The Pamphlet’s website does not disclose any parent company, ownership, editorial team, funding details or board of directors. Its ‘About Us’ page offers only a description of what it does, while calling itself ‘an independent digital media platform’. The only publicly mentioned funding source we could find was YouTube memberships of The Pamphlet costing Rs. 119 to Rs. 3199 per month.

Nautiyal is not the only link between Savitr Analytics and The Pamphlet. An individual named Shiv Kumar Mishra was appointed the director of Savitr Analytics in April 2023. In March 2023, Mishra was announced as the CEO of The Pamphlet.

In other words, two of the three directors of Savitr Analytics Media and Research Foundation have held senior positions at The Pamphlet. And in both cases, the appointments to Savitr and The Pamphlet came in close succession. This raises the question of whether the two entities are formally linked.

We also found that The Pamphlet had an office space from its inception in Dehradun, and it is evident from a photo posted by Nautiyal that it began with a team of at least 20 people. Bhatt, the reader would remember, also claims to be from Dehradun.

While all of this points to a connection between Bhatt and The Pamphlet, there appears to be a concerted effort to keep that relationship under wraps. Hence, we tried to dig more.

Is Bhatt Linked to The Pamphlet? We Asked The Pamphlet

We sent an email to The Pamphlet on September 3 asking them about the relationship between Savitr Analytics and The Pamphlet, and whether Alok Bhatt was connected to The Pamphlet, given that he holds a 95% stake in Savitr Analytics, a company whose other directors have held senior positions at The Pamphlet. We also asked them about their funding sources, since nothing is mentioned on the website.

In reply, they asked us to send our queries to another email ID of The Pamphlet and also to Alok Bhatt, Nirwa Mehta, Ashish Nautiyal and Shiv Mishra. Interestingly, they provided us with the email IDs and phone numbers of each of these individuals. This, in itself, might be considered an indicator of some sort of link between The Pamphlet and Bhatt. It is unlikely for an organisation to provide the direct contact details of someone with whom it has no professional association.

We then sent our queries to all of them.

Nautiyal responded to us saying that his reporting manager, OpIndia editor Nupur J Sharma, “suggested” him “not to give (you) any quotes or information as a matter of policy of not engaging with entities that don’t act in good faith”. A day later, he took to X to let the world know that a woman from Alt News “with a Hindu-sounding name” had approached him with some questions.

Pamphlet editor Nirwa Mehta sent us a 1,071-word response, but did not answer any of our questions. Instead, she sent a detailed set of reciprocal questions concerning Alt News’ funding transparency, the outside associations of its founders and editor, and grants received by individuals associated with Alt News, both currently and in the past. She offered to answer Alt News’ questions in writing once Alt News answered hers first.

It is worth noting that The Pamphlet published a video on Alt News on August 16, 2026, without seeking a response from the organisation.

This correspondent responded to Mehta, stating that questions concerning Alt News’ funding should be directed to its editor, while questions concerning any of the founders’ personal assignments should be directed to the person concerned. We also reminded her that a so-called expose on Alt News’ founders had been published by The Pamphlet without either of the concerned persons being approached for a response — a violation of basic journalistic ethics.

In her final response, Mehta did not address the question of ethics. Instead, in a demand that many may find bizarre, she asked this correspondent, “as a responsible employee”, to take her questions to the Alt News directors.

At this point, we felt there was no point continuing the conversation.

We will update our article if The Pamphlet answers Alt News’ questions on whether Savitr Analytics and The Pamphlet are connected in any way, and whether Alok Bhatt, BJP’s new IT cell member who continues to remain away from X, holds a position at The Pamphlet.

Social Media Posts Answer the Question

The connection between The Pamphlet and Alok Bhatt is one of internet’s worst kept secrets, it seems. We found several instances on social media where well-known faces from the Right-wing ecosystem tagged Alok Bhatt alongside members of The Pamphlet team — whether to thank them for invitations to Delhi Shabdotsav 2026, where The Pamphlet Panchayat featured on the itinerary, or in connection with other events involving the organisation.

On January 5, 2026, Right-wing influencer Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, who was recently criticised for comparing Newslaundry journalists to prostitutes, thanked The Pamphlet team — including its editor Nirwa Mehta, anchor Shreya Arora, and Bhatt — for inviting him to speak at The Pamphlet Panchayat.

Responding to Iyer-Mitra, Nirwa Mehta and another The Pamphlet employee, Pratibha, thanked him for being a part of the session. The exchange is significant because it can be seen as an acknowledgement by the Pamphlet editor and another employee of Bhatt being a part of the organisation.

Delhi Shabdotsav 2026 was a three-day cultural and literary festival held from January 2 to January 4, 2026, organised by Suruchi Prakashan with the support of the department of art, culture and languages of the Delhi government. The Pamphlet was the digital partner at the event and hosted ‘The Pamphlet Panchayat’ at the fest. The Pamphlet team held and moderated several discussions over the three days, including those with Sanjeev Newar, Vijay Patel, and Subhi Vishwakarma. The subjects of the discussions ranged from ‘Love Jihad: factsheet’ to ‘Bharat’s Hostile Neighbourhood & Need to Regain Shatrubodh’.

We went through the images posted on Shabdotsav’s website and found that Bhatt was present at the event.

The link between Alok Bhatt and The Pamphlet becomes more apparent in another conversation on X in which Iyer-Mitra directly addressed Mehta as Pamphlet and Alok Bhatt’s ‘staff’. Iyer jokingly rebuked Mehta for liking a certain kind of car. Tagging Bhatt, he wrote, “Do @Pamphlet_in and @alok_bhatt @shreya_arora22 approve of these disgusting and extremely hateful statements by their staff?” Mehta responded to Iyer-Mitra’s post, but did not object to the ‘staff’ reference.

On June 1, 2023, a little more than a year after The Pamphlet’s inception, one @saket71 posted a picture with Ashish Nautiyal, who was working at The Pamphlet then, and called him a ‘Media Mughal’. He later tagged Alok Bhatt and Shiv Mishra, praising them for “putting a great team together.”

Several people have congratulated Alok Bhatt at various points of time upon The Pamphlet reaching certain milestones.

To sum up, what raises serious questions about the BJP’s decision to name Bhatt as its social media co-convenor is not just his past social media conduct, but also the opacity surrounding his professional associations. One organisation he appears to be associated with, The Pamphlet, does not publicly disclose its ownership, editorial team, board or funding sources. Without any apparent source of funding, it starts off as a 20-member organization. Who pays their salary? How are establishment costs met? There are no answers. Again, another corporate entity closely linked to him, Savitr Analytics, has no website or public online presence despite reporting Rs 2.7 crore in operational revenue in 2025.

Things get murkier when one takes into account the desperate efforts by Bhatt’s associates to conceal his association with The Pamphlet, evident in the organisation’s refusal to answer direct questions regarding this.

In other words, a man linked to organisations with questionable records, and whose involvement with a pro-government outlet is abundantly visible in public, but markedly absent from the outlet’s own disclosures, has now been given a formal position in the BJP’s social media cell.