By Archit Mehta

On January 26, the leader of the opposition in West Bengal, BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari posted a video and alleged that All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader and former MLA Purna Chandra Bauri and other leaders sang the national anthem while hoisting the AITC flag. In the video, we can see people singing the national anthem in front of an AITC flag.

( Link https://twitter.com/SuvenduWB/status/1486393794908291080?t=MzUKkxrQqLS-c_VC8bYtvw&s=19)

Twitter accounts BefittingFacts and MeghBulletin shared Adhikari’s tweet. Their tweets gained over 1,000 retweets each. Both these users are influencers in the counterfactual community in India. Alt News has documented multiple instances of them spreading misinformation – BefittingFacts and MeghBulletin.

( Link https://twitter.com/BefittingFacts/status/1486573958119841792?t=Lq0b1Q7bdgagLY4Sz-kEIA&s=19)

( Link https://twitter.com/MeghBulletin/status/1486579437122379778?t=PzsYJlDO1nWSB51XfHP15w&s=19)

Twitter-based news portal News Arena India, RSS-mouth piece Organiser Weekly and Hindi media outlet Punjab Kesari tweeted the same claim or “reported” the incident based on Adhikari’s tweet.

Using the social media tool, CrowdTangle, we found that about 20 prominent Facebook users posted this video on January 21. A majority of them were by/on pro-government Facebook pages/groups such as —Nation with NaMo [over 14 lakh followers], JP Nadda BJP Group [over 35K followers]; The Saffron Sword [over 40K followers]; and Achievements of Modi Govt [over 1K followers].

Video verification
Alt News spoke with AITC member Purnachandra Bauri from the Raghunathpur assembly in Purulia. He confirmed that the viral video shows him and his associates during January 26 Republic Day celebrations. He told Alt News over a telephonic call that this event took place at Raghunathpur and the viral video is misleading.

He shared multiple images and videos from the same event that prove the viral video is either cropped or shot in a way that it doesn’t show the national flag next to the AITC flag. It’s worth noting that the national flag is hoisted on a higher flagstaff.

Read the full story here:- https://www.altnews.in/did-tmc-members-unfurl-party-flag-while-singing-national-anthem-on-r-day-no-cropped-video-viral/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=newpost