Video Editor: Abhishek Sharma and Vivek Gupta
A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s outburst after she was greeted with ‘Jai Shree Ram’ chants during the commemoration event of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Kolkata, Bharatiya Janta Party’s (BJP) official West Bengal unit shared an old video of Banerjee reciting Islamic verses at an event, accusing her of ‘appeasement politics’.
Only, the said video has been clipped and shared out of context. In a longer version of the same video, Banerjee can be heard reciting not just Islamic, but verses of other religions too.
CLAIM
The claim has been shared by multiple users on Twitter and Facebook, accusing Banerjee of insulting Subhas Chandra Bose’s legacy.
“If CM Mamata Banerjee can recite an Islamic prayer at a West Bengal government event, why does she have a problem being greeted with Jai Shree Ram? Appeasement? She disgraced Bengal and insulted Netaji’s legacy by her conduct at the event to commemorate Netaji’s anniversary,” BJP’s Bengal unit tweeted.
It was also shared by BJP MP Manoj Kotak and social media in-charge of party’s women’s wing, Priti Gandhi.
English news channel Times Now also reported on the tweet. While they mentioned that the video is old, they failed to provide the full context.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We went through the comments on the tweet by BJP, we found that a user had shared a longer version of the clip. The one minute 27 seconds long clip showed Banerjee reciting other verses too.
A reverse image search then directed us to the full version of Mamata’s speech uploaded on the official YouTube channel of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in 2018.
21 minutes 33 seconds into the video we can see the West Bengal CM reciting Hindu verses. She says, “This is the new year, so I look at the amalgamation of all cultures and say, Maa Go, keep everyone well. Pray for everyone’s prosperity,” and follows this with Hindu chants.
After this 22 minutes and 6 seconds into the video, Islamic chants begin which are then followed by Christian and Sikh prayers.
We also found a report by DD News which mentioned that the video is from the Maati Utsav inauguration, which took place at Mati Tirtha in Bardhaman district.
Clearly, a notoriously clipped version of an old speech of Mamata Banerjee, where she recites multi-faith prayers, was shared on social media to insinuate that she is opposed to a crowd chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ but readily recites Islamic verses to appease minorities.
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