Trinamool Fends Off Attacks After Posting Morphed Photo Of Rajnath, Karat

Kolkata: His party leader had once put a professor behind bars for forwarding a cartoon by email. Now Trinamool lawmaker Derek O'Brien has had to issue an apology for putting out in the public domain a picture of the union Home Minister Rajnath Singh popping a sweet into the mouth of top communist leader Prakash Karat.

The picture was photoshopped but clearly without checking Mr O'Brien presented it at a press conference in Kolkata today to make a point that the left and the BJP were on "sweet terms".

Once the picture hit television screens, BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh slammed the Trinamool saying the picture was a fake.

Mr Singh said in the original photo, Rajnath Singh was popping a sweet into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mouth in 2013. In the morphed photo, Mr Modi's face had been replaced by Mr Karat's.
 Mr Prakash Karat also issued a statement saying, "I have not got any opportunity of meeting Rajnath Singh ever. It is a patently false picture."

Even before Mr Karat spoke out, the Trinamool put out a statement saying: "Two videos and 6 pics were shown at our press conference. We removed one picture immediately when our research team learnt that it was photoshopped."

Mr O'Brien told NDTV that it was a genuine error by the research team.

But the Opposition has gone to town on this issue. Mr Mohammad Salim, a CPM lawmaker said the Mr O'Brien should resign.

State BJP vice president Jayprakash Majumdar said Trinamool chairperson and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will also come under the purview of its legal action.