NEW DELHI: From deep sea to You Tube. After battling geographical bumps to keep its Andhra offshore field going, Reliance Industries Ltd is now engaged a bitter fight for eyeballs. India‘s biggest private oil company on March 20 launched its counter-attack on You Tube to drill holes in allegations made by detractors such as AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal that was uploaded on the social media.

The company sent out mailers with a link to a You Tube presentation that described allegations made at a media event earlier this month as “strange and irresponsible statement”. The mailer did not name Kejriwal or any other leader. “The statement is fraught with poor knowledge of the constitutional scheme and is aimed only to misinform… It is, therefore, incumbent upon us to place the record straight,” the company mailer said.

The video clip shows an anchor giving point-by-point rebuttal in Hindi to allegations that the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat had extended undue benefit to the company and its gas project. The You Tube video clearly demonstrates that RIL is no longer willing to take, what it calls, “unfound allegations” lying down. The choice of language, Hindi, also displays the company broad-basing its public communication to the hinterland — ostensibly Kejriwal’s constituency. Earlier this month, the company had launched a mobile message campaign to counter AAP. Clearly, it’s a fight for eyeballs now.