In a bizarre turn of events, the State NCP unit has accused a State BJP Minister of faking his presence at Modi swearing-in ceremony by morphing a dated photo of him and India’s new Prime Minister.
State Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar has uploaded a photo via Facebook titled “at swearing-in ceremony — with Narendra Modi at Rashtrapati Bhavan”. However, it has come to light that the photo was clicked a year earlier when Modi was in the State for the BJP National Executive.
“This photo cannot have been taken at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Parulekar is indulging in white lies. First of all, Modi was wearing a cream kurta with a waist coat at the ceremony. And Kunkolienkar was in Panaji on Monday evening at Azad maidan,” NCP State vice-president D’Mello told a Press conference at the party’s headquarters in Panaji.
“This amounts to lowering the dignity of the Prime Minister by dragging him into Facebook lies. We demand that the Cabinet Minister should tender a public apology and the Chief Minister should clean out such rotten apples from his cabinet,” D’Mello said.
He exhibited a copy of the photo uploaded on Parulekar’s Facebook page, which shows Parulekar with Modi who is wearing a white round-collared short kurta. The photo uploaded also has joint secretary to the Chief Minister’s office Siddharth Kunkolienkar in the background. However, Kunkolienkar was in Panaji at the live screening on Monday evening.
Parulekar’s bluff was called by comments posted below the photo. “I guess this picture was clicked in June last year during the BJP executive meet,” says one Sneha Sabnis. Parulekar was unreachable for comment and his mobile phone was out of coverage area.