The Twitter account of influencer Revant Himatsingka, who recently accused Cadbury of making false claims about its health drink Bournvita, has been suspended. On Twitter, one user shared screenshots in which Revant said his account suddenly got hacked. “I lost all my followers and my account got permanently suspended, and I am not allowed to create new accounts,” stated the screenshots.
Shashank Shekhar Jha, a Twitter user, said the influencer must approach courts to fight “this bullying”. “I believe that #foodpharmer must approach Courts to fight this bullying. If possible, kindly connect me with him,” he wrote on Twitter.
Dr Prasanna Thirunavukkarasu, another user, asked Twitter to restore the account of Himatsingka. “Twitter stop supporting corporate agendas and bring back @foodpharmer account back live.”
Himatsingka recently put out a video in which he read out the ingredients of what Cadbury calls a health drink, Bournvita. Holding a pack of Bournvita, he said: “If you look at the ingredient, per 100 gm, they have 50 grams of sugar. So basically the entire half of this bag is of sugar.” He also claimed that the company had not changed anything in formulations to boost immunity as was claimed on the packet. He said that the tagline of Bournvita is ‘taiyari jeet ki’ but rather, “it should be ‘taiyari diabetes ki”.
Cadbury reacted to this and sent a legal notice to Himatsingka, following which the influencer took down the video. The company clarified that Bournvita contains nutrients namely vitamins A, C, D, Iron, Zinc, Copper, and Selenium which help build immunity. “These have been part of our formulation for several years. We have always called out ‘Helps with the healthy functioning of the immune system’ on the back of our pack for several years.”
On April 14, Revant shared a post on his Instagram and said he decided to take down the Bournvita video after receiving a legal notice from one of India’s biggest law firms on 13 April. “I apologise to Cadbury for making the video. I did not plan or intend to infringe any trademark or defame any company nor do I have the interest or resources to participate in any court cases and I request MNCs to not take this forward legally,” he wrote.
