Fact Check: Was TN Republic Day tableau rejected over Karunanidhi, wife's statue? Find out
Tamil Nadu’s Republic Day tableau was rejected because of the addition of the statues of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and his wife Rajathi Ammal to the tableaux, according to a viral post.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 23 Jan 2022 12:16 PM GMT
Hyderabad: Tamil Nadu's Republic Day tableau was rejected because of the addition of the statues of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and his wife Rajathi Ammal to the tableaux, according to a viral post. It claims that Congress MP Karti Chidambaram gave this reason for the rejection of Tamil Nadu's tableaux from this year's Republic Day parade.
The post reads, "Karti Chidambaram's advice to the Tamil Nadu government - It has been reported that the decorative vehicle of Tamil Nadu was rejected as the statue of Karunanidhi and his wife Rajathi Ammal were placed in the vehicle sent on behalf of the government of Tamil Nadu. The DMK government should have avoided this."
Click here to see another similar Facebook post.
Fact Check:
NewsMeter checked the authenticity of the viral picture that shows the statues of late CM Karunanidhi and his wife in the Republic Day tableaux. A reverse image search proved that the viral picture was edited.
Niranjan Kumar, a correspondent from Delhi, had tweeted a photo of the model of the Tamil Nadu tableau. Only the statues of V.O Chidambaranar, Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Rani Velu Nachiyar, and Maruthu Brothers can be seen.
The Tamil Nadu government had also issued a statement stating that the statues of W.U Chidambaranar, Mahakavi Bharathiyar, Velu Nachiyar, and Maruthu brothers were included in the decorative vehicle.
Below is a comparison of the viral edited picture and the original photo. The original photo was edited to add the statues of Karunanidhi and his wife.
NewsMeter checked for news reports that could support the viral statement made by Karti Chidambaram but found none. In fact, Mr. Chidambaram had tweeted the viral post and denied that he had made such remarks.
The viral post has a logo of Thanthi TV. We checked Thanthi TV's social media pages and found that it too had denied issuing the viral post.
The Centre had rejected Tamil Nadu's Republic Day tableaux because only Mahakavi Bharathiyar was a known freedom fighter and not the others. According to reports, the government will only accept tableaux carrying famous freedom fighters, thus rejecting those like W.U Chidambaranar, Velu Nachiyar, and the Maruthu brothers because international leaders do not know them. Moreover, Tamil Nadu is not been the only state whose vehicle was rejected. Vehicles from Kerala and West Bengal have also been rejected. (Sources: Economic Times, News Bricks, Time News, Asian Net News)
Evidently, the addition of statues of former Tamil Nadu CM M. Karunanidhi and his wife Rajathi Ammal in the state's Republic Day tableau is not the reason for its rejection from the parade.
