A couple of days after Trinamool Congress's annual July 21 Martyrs' Day rally in Kolkata, Bengal BJP's official X handle shared a video claiming that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said that the poor should remain poor.
The clip, around 8 seconds in length, shows Banerjee saying. "Ami chai apnara gorib thakun - maaney ja ache ghore, sheta kheye beche thakun" (Translation: I want you to remain poor, that is, be satisfied with whatever you have).
The tweet by the official X handle of BJP's Bengal unit (@BJP4Bengal) said, "Mamata Banerjee wants to keep the people of Bengal trapped in poverty. She has no vision left for the state's future. The time has come to uproot the Bangla-Birodhi TMC government." (Archive)
Several BJP-supporting X handles like Befitting Facts (@BefittingFacts), Keya Ghosh (@keyakahe), @vinushareddyb, @SouleFacts amplified the claim. (Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4)
Screenshots below:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Fact Check
To begin with, we compared the video to photos of this year's July 21 event taken from Mamata Banerjee's official Facebook page, and found that the video was not from this year's Shaheed Diwas programme. The difference in the saree worn by the CM confirms this. Besides, this year, there was no rain during the meeting, while the video shows Banerjee speaking amidst steady rain.
Thereafter, we broke down the viral video into keyframes. A reverse image search on one of them led us to the original video on Trinamool Congress's YouTube channel, which is from last year's rally.
At the 2:57:54-hour mark in the video, Banerjee issues a warning to her party leaders and workers against engaging in corrupt means to amass wealth. She says: "Ami all municipality, Panchayat, MLA, MP der shokolke bolbo, ekhon theke kono obhijog jeno karur biruddhe dol na paay. Jodi kono obhijog karur biruddhe paay, amra kintu upojukto action nebo. Eta mathay rakhben. Ami chai apnara gorib thakun. - maaney ja ache ghore, sheta kheye beche thakun."(Translation: I am saying this to all municipality (members), Panchayat (members), MLAs, and MPs, that the party should not receive any complaints against any of you. If there is a complaint, we will take necessary actions. Keep this in mind. If you are poor, remain poor, that is, be content with whatever you have).
The lines in bold have been left out of the viral video to distort the context of what the Bengal CM said.
To sum up, it is evident that Mamata Banerjee had made the "remain poor" remarks in a different context. At last year's Martyrs' Day rally, she had warning her party members against indulging in corruption, which prompted her to say that they should remain content with whatever little they had. The 8-second video shared by Bengal BJP is clipped and it distorts the contest of the statement made by the chief minister.
CMP: 25112. 40Moving AVG (EMA) 20 Hour & 40 Hour: 24922 & 24900Moving AVG (EMA) 20 Day & 40 Day: 24838 & 24598Support ...
Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.