'President unveiled Netaji's painting and not of any actor'

NEW DELHI: Rashtrapati Bhawan on Monday rejected the rumours being peddled on social media platforms that Subhash Chandra Bose's portrait unveiled by President Ram Nath Kovind on his 125th birth anniversary was that of actor Prasenjit Chatterjee, who portrayed Netaji in Srijit Mukherjee directorial 'Gumnaami'.

"We do not comment on tweets. The painting was made in Rashtrapati Bhawan and you think that it is a painting of an actor. What kind of question is it? Something is being run on Twitter, but it may be politically motivated. What can we say on it?," a senior Rashtrapati Bhawan official told IANS requesting anonymity.

The official replied to the question after the matter went viral on Twitter with some people tweeting with their handles alleging that the "President unveiled the official portrait of actor Prasenjit Chatterjee (Bumbada) and not Netaji at the Rashtrapati Bhawan".

Meanwhile, Srijit Mukherjee, director of 'Gumnaami', came up with a clarification on Twitter. He tweeted a picture of Bose and said that this picture was the basis of the painting at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

“For any similarity of Prosenjit’s [actor Prosenjit Chatterjee’s] look to this photo, the credit goes to Somnath Kundu [the make-up artist for the movie],” he wrote on the microblogging site.

The following is the picture on the basis of which the painting at Rashtrapati Bhawan was painted by Paresh Maity. For any similarity of Prosenjit's look to this photo, the credit goes to Somnath Kundu. #Gumnaami @prosenjitbumba pic.twitter.com/Lhy5FTzjtt

— Srijit Mukherji (@srijitspeaketh) January 25, 2021

The President on January 23 unveiled a portrait of Netaji at the Rashtrapati Bhawan to mark the beginning of the year-long celebrations to commemorate the freedom fighter's 125th birth anniversary.

The government has decided to observe January 23 as "Parakram Divas" from now on every year. Bose was born in 1897.