A video of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has emerged showing her in the premises of the state Assembly coming face to face with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state chief Dilip Ghosh with chants of Jai Shree Ram in the background. The video has been shared not only on WhatsApp but also on Twitter.
Banerjee is seen with a frown on her face as Ghosh folds his hands to greet her. The Bengal CM is seen leaving without returning the greetings with folded hands, but seems to say something which remains inaudible. There are repeated chants of Jai Shree Ram in the background, and it appears that Banerjee is offended by these chants.
This however, is a fake video. The Assembly is not in session now, and some people in the video are seen wearing warm clothes, including state finance minister Amit Mitra. This means it was in winter and such an episode was not reported by the media in the past. Apart from the chief minister and ministers, there were some journalists too present in the group. It is hard to believe that such an episode in the state Assembly (happening right in front of journalists) would not be reported by the media.
The video was shot on the day the state budget was placed in the Assembly, in February 2019. One of the journalists present there remembered the episode and said that there were no chants of Jai Shree Ram when the CM and Dilip Ghosh came face to face in the state Assembly premises. While Ghosh greeted her with folded hands, she had uttered a few words – “it was either – ‘ki khobor or kemon achhen (how are you doing)’ which she had said without her hands showing a namashkar”. Mamata Banerjee was going to the press corner of the state Assembly along with Amit Mitra for a press conference and Ghosh had come out after holding a press conference.
But there were no chants of Jai Shree Ram, the journalist confirmed. This makes it clear that the chants have been added to the old video.
Banerjee being confronted with the words Jai Shree Ram slogan (commonly used by the BJP) was made into a major campaign by the party during the Lok Sabha poll campaigning in Bengal and elsewhere in the country. During her visit to West Midnapore’s Chandrakona, Banerjee stopped her car and came out when some people were shouting Jai Shree Ram along the road through which her vehicle was passing. She said that the people were using “galagali” (abuses) – though her exact sentence was not clear in the video. It was used by the BJP to say she had meant that the phrase was an abuse.
Watch the video here:
