On Tuesday (July 5), advocate and activist Prashant Bhushan courted controversy after he shared morphed pictures of NDA’s Presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu.
In a tweet, Bhushan claimed that Murmu had recently visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur and that suggested how she would be a ‘rubber stamp’.
His tweet read, “BJP’s presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu visits Mohan Bhagwat at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur! Is there any doubt that she will just be a rubber stamp and not be able to function independently?”
In a bid to lend credence to his outlandish claims, Prashant Bhushan posted a picture of Draupadi Murmu with RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat. The duo were seen paying respect to an image of Bharat Mata.
The Truth behind the image of Draupadi Murmu
However, the picture posted by the Supreme Court advocate is the outcome of digital manipulation. Two different images were clubbed and mirrored to create the morphed picture, which was tweeted by Prashant Bhushan.
One of the pictures was taken from a tweet, which was uploaded by the official handle of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on March 11, 2022. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was seen alongside general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale at an event in Gujarat.
The duo was seen offering flowers and seeking blessing from Bharat Mata. The image also had a group of people in the background.
राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ की अखिल भारतीय प्रतिनिधि सभा की बैठक आज गुजरात के कर्णावती में प्रारम्भ हुई। बैठक का शुभारम्भ पू. सरसंघचालक डॉ. मोहनजी भागवत और मा. सरकार्यवाह श्री दत्तात्रेय होसबाले जी ने भारत माता के चित्र पर पुष्पार्चन करके किया। बैठक 13 मार्च को सम्पन्न होगी। pic.twitter.com/gWNk7KwpwZ
— RSS (@RSSorg) March 11, 2022
Similarly, the picture of Presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu was taken during a meeting with Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren. The image appeared during a reverse Google search on an article by The Quint.
As evident from the morphed image of Prashant Bhushan, both the real pictures were rotated by 180 degrees to create a mirror effect. The image of Draupadi Murmu was superimposed on that of Dattatreya Hosabale’s picture with Mohan Bhagwat.
Prashant Bhushan and misinformation campaigns
Prashant Bhushan is a serial fake news peddler. After the obvious photoshop was called out by many on social media, he has now deleted his tweet. Until last year, the Supreme Court advocate was busy peddling misinformation about Covid-19 and creating vaccine hesitancy in India.
In February this year, Prashant Bhushan had advocated that financial resources allocated towards Covid-19 vaccines in Union Budget 2021 ought to be relocated to migrant workers and farmers. In his defence, he had claimed that Covid-19 was “naturally dying down” in the country.
Two months later, India witnessed the deadly second wave of Wuhan Coronavirus. Bhushan had also claimed younger population has a higher chance of dying through vaccination as compared to suffering severe complications or even death due to coronavirus.
His anti-vaccine bile came after Twitter had removed Prashant Bhushan’s anti-mask tweets for spreading misinformation.
