Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal and comedian Kunal Kamra got involved in a verbal war over the weekend. It all started when the comedian tweeted regarding the ongoing servicing issues of Ola Electric's S1 series of EV scooters. Sharing an image of an Ola dealership crowded with Ola scooters gathering dust waiting to be serviced, Kamra called out customers to protest against the company.
Here’s what happened
Kamra wrote: “Do indian consumers have a voice? Do they deserve this? Two wheelers are many daily wage workers lifeline…@nitin_gadkari is this how Indians will get to using EV’s? @jagograhakjago any word? Anyone who has an issue with OLA electric leave your story below tagging all…”
Aggarwal expressed his displeasure alleging the post was a paid tweet by Kamra. Calling the comedian out for his ‘failed career’, the Ola CEO urged him to find real work or sit back and let the company focus on fixing real issues.
Aggarwal commented, “Chot lagi? Dard hua? Aaja service center. Bahut kaam hai. I will pay better than your flop shows pay you. Show your audience how much you truly care and whether you’re only gas and BS.”
Kamra was infuriated and tweeted, “So you can’t offer a 100 percent refund to people who have purchased your OLA in the last 4 months who are genuine customers…
But you want to pay me who’s not a customer.”
In a series of tweets, the comedian also suggested to the entrepreneur, “Don’t run away, I can help you by compiling the list of genuine customers & making sure their refund is processed. Their delight will be enough to pay me…
I’ll give an email ID in my next tweet once you stop trying to hire me & focus on your actual customers.”
The Indian CEO replied, “We have enough programs for our customers if they face service delays. If you were a genuine one, you would have known.
Again, don’t try and back out of this. Come and do some real work rather than armchair criticism.”
Referring to the Ola CEO as 'OLAN MUSK', the comedian tweeted back, “Paid tweet, failed comedy career & Sit quietly. Indian Businessman at their humble best…
If you can prove I am paid for the tweet this or anything else I must’ve said against private companies, I’ll delete all social media & sit quietly forever.”
Netizens & unhappy EV customers join in
Meanwhile, netizens and Ola EV customers joined the conversation. Some criticized Aggarwal for being arrogant others shared their miserable experience with newly bought electric two-wheelers.
A user, Aditya Shah, shared screenshots of a Whatsapp conversation and said, "While the OLA electric CEO rants on someone else's paid tweet or not. I & multiple influencers were approached to do paid tweet about Ola just as recently as last month. Ola hired PR agency to create nice tweets on Social media. The regulator should crack down on such PR stunts."
While Aggarwal was busy taking down Kamra on social media, netizens openly criticized the Ola founder for being arrogant.
At this point, complaints against Ola scooters are around 80,000 per month. Many people questioned the Ola CEO why he was not working harder to address the problems faced by his customers instead of taking digs at someone who spoke the truth.
An X user commented: “Bhavish Aggarwal will soon learn how costly it can get to be publicly arrogant as a rich businessman in India, especially with a product like Ola Electric.”
Many netizens have even drawn a comparison between him and Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal. While Aggarwal’s high-handed attitude was off-putting Goyal has always maintained a humble persona. Recently, he was seen along with his wife Grecia Munoz, donning the signature Zomato uniform and working as a delivery partner for a day. The Zomato CEO had explained that it was to understand and improve the working conditions of the delivery executives.
Read also: I don’t think work-life balance is the right construct, says Ola CEO (startuppedia.in)
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