The Covid pandemic has shook several countries to its core and India is no different. While battling Covid for the past 16 months, India’s governing authority had to face major ups and downs throughout this whole time. Being the second most populous country in the world, the country is facing a major threat due to the spreading of virus. The country not only reported the maximum number of daily infected cases, but also had a high mortality rate. India ranks at the second position in the world chart of the highly affected areas due to Covid-19 with the total number of cases stands at 28,440,988 and the total numbers of death counts for in total of 338,013 recorded cases. While recently, a video went viral in which, a woman is seen criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government on its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been misidentified as senior Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader and MP Maneka Gandhi.
This 3 minute video clipping of the woman criticizing Modi Government and Home Minister Amit Shah for Covid-19 mismanagement is currently viral on Facebook. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government completed its two years in office in its second term on this May 30th. Although India is gradually recovering from the second wave of the pandemic with the number of fresh infections going down, the common people i.e. the citizens or simply put the ‘public’ leaves no chance to criticise the functioning of the ruling authority.
The woman was purported as BJP MP from Sultanpur i.e. Maneka Gandhi who is lashing out at her own party for the existing Covid crisis. The post had garnered over 30,000 views and is still being shared in many social media groups.
Though, on clearly watching the video, it is clear that the woman in the viral video is not BJP MP Maneka Gandhi but Dolly Sharma, a Congress leader from Ghaziabad. She contested against General VK Singh but lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
She had uploaded the same video on her verified Facebook page on April 20. She uploaded that LIVE video of nearly 23-minute-long on her Facebook account on 20 April and the footage seen in the viral video can be viewed from 14:15 minutes.
She criticised the government for its handling of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Punjab Youth Congress also shared this video on its official Facebook page on May 11 and cropped the portion which shows Pro Punjab TV’s logo.
Thus, it is clear that the viral video is spread with wrong statements and it is Dolly Sharma who criticized the government and not Maneka Gandhi. Though, many sections of people in India are fuming over Modi government’s lack of preparation and thinking the worst of the pandemic was over, The government has been chastised by opposition parties and critics for holding mass election rallies in West Bengal that may have worsened the situation. Also, the decision to permit the mega Kumbh Mela in Uttarakhand has also been viewed as a reckless decision.
