Margani Bharat Ram is an actor-turned-politician and a member of parliament from the Rajahmundry Lok Sabha constituency, Andhra Pradesh, having won as the YSRCP candidate in the 2019 elections. He caught everyone’s attention by defeating Rupa, the daughter-in-law of political stalwart Murali Mohan Maganti. He even drew praise from TDP senior MLA Gorantla Buchaiah Chaudhary for his role during the debates in Parliament. Active on social media, he reacts on every issue. This is one side of the coin. His latest tweet on the other hand has sparked controversy.
What is the tweet about?
Heavy downpour in both the Telugu states because of severe cyclones in the Bay of Bengal led to a year’s rainfall being registered in a single day. Thousands went homeless. Hyderabad, which claims to be a world class city, and Vizag, the executive capital proposed by the government were flooded. Without considering this, the Rajahmundry MP Bharat Ram tweeted a photograph of Amaravati to downplay its potential as a Capital.
Fake it up to rake it up
In his over enthusiasm to show Amaravati in poor light, Bharat tweeted fake flood pictures and captioned them as the Capital. Alert netizens ran some background checks and found evidences of them to be fake. They began questioning the MP on using photos of Amaravati village in Guntur district and flood pictures from West Godavari district and wrongfully tweeting them as being from the Capital area.
Former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu carved Amaravati out of 29 villages and designated it as core capital region with an eye on the future. The distance between the capital Amaravati and the village Amaravati in Guntur (pictures tweeted by Bharat) is 21 km. The MP also tweeted flood pictures of West Godavari district from August 2020 and passed it off as Amaravati.
The fact is despite heavy rains, Amaravati, the capital was not inundated. Netizens are demanding the MP to delete his tweet at least now, but he is reluctant and adamant to propagate these fake pictures. Opposition parties are crying foul and are condemning the fake propaganda run by a lawmaker.