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Journalists peddle fake news about Netaji’s portrait, Twitter does a clean-up job for them

January 26, 2021
The Commune

On January 23, the President of India Ram Nath Kovind unveiled a portrait of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at Rashtrapati Bhavan to commemorate his 125th birth anniversary celebrations.

Soon, a section of journalists and several leaders from the opposition jumped in to say that the person in the portrait was that of a Bengali actor named Prosenjit Chatterjee who had played Bose in his biopic.

Trinamool Congress MP who is known for her loud speeches in Parliament, criticized about how the President donated ₹5 lakh to the construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya but ‘honoured Netaji’ by unveiling a portrait of actor Prosenjit.

“God save India (because this government certainly can’t)” she wrote.

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However, she later deleted this tweet.

Many other ‘journalists’ too took a dig at the portrait of the freedom fighter unveiled by the President. Sagarika Ghose, wife of another ‘journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai called the portait as ‘fake Netaji’. Just like his wife, Rajdeep Sardesai too tweeted saying that the President could have put up an original portrait of Netaji adding that the one unveiled by President was the picture of actor Prosenjit.

Barkha Dutt, Swati Chaturvedi, and Roshini Singh who are known for being against the BJP too took at dig at the Hon’ble President of India.

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However, their joy was short lived as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose, busted the lies peddled by these personalities.

Chandra Kumar Bose posted the picture original photograph of Netaji based on which portrait was drawn by Paresh Maity.

Following this, many on social media lashed out at these ‘journalists’ and leaders for doing unwarranted politics over Netaji. Some alleged that the misinformation was peddled by the Congress IT Cell.

That being the case, Twitter in its news section carried a headline stating “Portrait unveiled by President Ramnath Kovind is of Netaji, according to journalist”

Many pointed out that the Twitter’s news section highlights did not even have a mention of the fake news peddled by the opposition leaders and the likes of Barkha Dutt, Sagarikha Ghose, Rajdeep, etc.

BJP Tamil Nadu Spokesperson SG Suryah pointed out that the headlines put out by Twitter was misleading and said that it was a section of the journalists who spread lies and not the other way around. “Your definition of this manufactured controversy is fallacious”, he said.