BSP social media activist, Devashish Jarariya, today shared an image on Twitter claiming to be ashes of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who passed away earlier this month, being ‘sold’ on the e-commerce website Amazon.in.
https://twitter.com/jarariya91/status/1033938441862504449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
In his tweet, he was seen ‘condemning’ the ashes being sold for ‘politics’. The image shared showed a copper Kalash (urn) which had ‘ashes’ of the former prime minister which were sold along with a book on Prime Minister Modi, retailing at Rs. 999, sold for Rs. 899.
The image next to it also included ‘reviews’ of the ‘product’ (ashes of Vajpayee). One review, with a ‘verified purchase’ tag (meaning the reviewer has legitimately purchased the product he/she is reviewing), said that the ‘product’ is ‘fantastic’ but ashes are ‘too less’. ‘It must be stolen by some congressi, mulla or aaptards. Delivery timing is so quick and the book is fabulous namo namo’. Another such reviewer said it was ‘trust worthy materiel’ (material).
Devashish Jarariya had ‘tagged’ Tehseen Poonawalla, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, Sanjay Singh of Aam Aadmi Party, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Anil Yadav, ‘VYAPAM whistleblower’ Anand Rai, journalist Narendra Nath Mishra and Congress national media coordinator Radhika Khera amongst other people. The image, which is clearly morphed, has already been shared by 170 people and has 341 likes.
One of the responses to the above tweet was by one Twitter user ‘YoYoModi1’ who claimed that the image was fake as it was the only who had ‘shared it’.
We went to YoYoModi1’s Twitter profile to check the claims. Interestingly, the first time he shared the above set of images was on 25th August 2018. Interestingly, this Twitter user had shared the image in response to a self-proclaimed ‘fact-checker’ and co-founder of AltNews.in.
https://twitter.com/YoYoModi1/status/1033212698803073024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Despite being tagged, AltNews co-founder neither corrected him nor called him out. ‘YoYoModi1’ shared the image with many Congress supporting and Left handles, including Kavita Krishnan and Sanjiv Bhatt, but none of them have called out the insensitive tweet and the morphed image of Vajpayee’s ashes being sold on Amazon.
Former PM Vajpayee passed away on 16th August after a prolonged illness. BJP has decided to immerse ashes of Vajpayee in nearly 100 rivers across the country.