As if the Saradha and Narada scams were not enough to damage the Trinamool Congress’ integrity claim, yet another fake video involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CPI(M) politburo member Prakash Karat surfaced on Saturday. The development has prompted the left and the BJP to threaten criminal charges against the Bengal ruling outfit for trying to “tarnish our leaders’ images through a morphed video.”
The “photoshopped” video earlier published by Trinamool MP DerekO’Brien in a press conference showed Modi nibbling sweets at the hands of Karat.
Apparently the clipping bandied by Derek as “my favourite video” aimed at the minority community even as it hammered home the charges of left-BJP camaraderie in election-bound Bengal.
The original video, however, was shot on September 13, 2013 when senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh offered sweets to Modi upon his being officially declared as the prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections.
Though the Trinamool leadership promptly withdrew the picture from the party’s website as the one of the “two video and six pictures that where shown on the official website” was “photoshopped”, the left and the BJP said they would bring criminal charges any way.
BJP national leader Siddharthnath Singh said the party was taking up the matter with the Crime Branch of Calcutta Police while his Bengal party colleague JP Majumdar wondered “how a political party could morph and use the picture of none other than the Prime Minister of the country. We are going to file a criminal case against TMC and of course against Mamata Banerjee to as its president, without whose wishes, not a leave moves in that party.
CPI(M)’s Md Salim demanded police to take immediate action. “If police do not move suo motu then we will,” he said. Congress’ Abdul Mannan said “after failing to contest us politically and convinced that they are losing the elections the TMC is playing these dirty tricks.”
Bengal was to enter its fourth round of elections on April 25. Incidentally most of the remaining three phases of elections are scheduled to take place in comparatively urbanized areas including Kolkata, Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas, Salt lake etc.
The morphed video could bring another big blow on the TMC after Narada political analyst BN Chakrabarty said.