An image of Board of Control for Cricket in India’s President Sourav Ganguly has been morphed to make fake political posters for both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress.
The fake posters carry the words, “Welcome Dada,” in Bangla, with an image of Ganguly folding his hands and the logos of the respective parties. This comes amid speculations about the former cricketer’s political alliances for the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.
We traced the original image back to a 2016 poster for an incense stick brand, Cycle Rhythm Agarbathies.
CLAIM
Facebook user ‘Apurba Mondal’ shared a poster with the BJP’s logo, garnering over 3,100 likes at the time of writing this article.
Several users also shared the same poster, in green colour, carrying the logo of TMC party.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A reverse image search led us to a post on Pinterest, carrying the original image stating that Ganguly had been roped in as the brand ambassador for Cycle Rhythm Agarbathies.
Through a keyword search, we also found the image on the brand’s official Facebook page calle ‘Cycle Pure’ dated 10 September 2016.
Ganguly had also featured in an ad for the agarbathi brand.
A comparison of the viral images with the original one can be seen below. The colour of Ganguly’s attire has been edited to green in TMC’s poster.
Further, according to reports, speculation had been rife over Ganguly joining politics ahead of the Assembly elections in West Bengal. The Hindustan Times had also reported that BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya had stated that he was “most welcome” to attend PM Modi’s rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata.
However, according to a report by the Times of India, Ganguly had told a private media channel that the ‘role’ was ‘not meant for everyone’, when asked about joining politics. Ganguly’s friend and CPM leader Asok Bhattacharya also told TOI that the BCCI chief didn’t want to join politics.
Thus, at the time of writing this article, Ganguly’s political alliance hadn’t been established.
Evidently, a photo of the BCCI president was morphed to create fake posters for political parties ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections.
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