A fake letter by Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s ‘contribution’ towards a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ has surfaced on social media.
The letter goes on to state that the PM has approved the CM’s proposal for an international airport at Ayodhya and Rs 1,000 crore have been allocated towards the district by the state government. It also praises Adityanath’s ‘hard work’ towards “saffronisation.”
CLAIM
The letter was shared by several users on Twitter, with the caption, “The hidden truth of Modi government is exposed, BJP is engaged in making the country a Hindu nation. (sic).”
The Quint also received a query regarding the letter on its WhatsApp helpline.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A similar letter had gone viral in August 2020 addressed to CM Adityanath by PM Modi. PIB fact-check had called out the letter as fake back then.
Both the letters have the same first sentence as well as a couple of other similar sentences.
We also observed a few stylistic errors in the viral letter. In original letters sent to cricketers Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina, the date is written in the (DD Month, YYYY) format, while in the viral letter it’s in the (Month DD, YYYY) format.
In the letters addressed to the cricketers as well as in the original letter sent by PM Modi to CM Adityanath, written in Devanagari, the address of the recipient is mentioned at the bottom of the letter.
Further, according to several news reports, the UP government’s proposal for an international airport in Ayodhya was approved by the Centre on 26 February, which is before the date mentioned in the viral letter.
The chief minister had stated then that the state government had allocated Rs 1,000 crore to the district administration, while the Centre had disbursed Rs 250 crore.
UP government’s fact-checking team also took to Twitter to call out the letter as fake.
Evidently, a fake letter has been circulated on social media in the name of PM Modi. The Quint’s WebQoof team earlier debunked a similar fake letter, which claimed that PM Modi congratulated the five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court for “stupendous contribution to Hindu Rashtra” on the Ayodhya verdict.
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