The Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party was left red faced after it used a video clip of doctor and classical dancer Srinidhi Chidambaram, who is the wife of Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, in one of the campaign videos for the Assembly elections in the state. The tweet was deleted later, reported NDTV.
Srinidhi Chidambaram ridiculed the BJP for using her photograph for its tweet on Tuesday. “The lotus will never bloom in Tamil Nadu,” she said while responding to a screenshot of the video clip shared by a journalist on Twitter.
The party had used a clip of Chidambaram dancing to SemMozhi, a song written by the late former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and composed by musician AR Rahman. While the footage of the dancer was only a few seconds long, the BJP used Chidambaram’s face as the cover picture of the campaign video, according to several screenshots of the tweet on social media.
The video, titled “Let Lotus Bloom, Let Tamil Nadu Grow”, was shared on Tamil Nadu BJP’s official Twitter handle on March 28. The five-minute clip comprised a montage of images meant to showcase the greatness of Tamil language and culture, and how it had flourished due to the saffron party, according to The Indian Express.
Nirmal, a member of BJP’s IT Cell, told NDTV that the error took place because of a vendor who took Chidambaram’s video clip from a government website.
The Congress mocked the BJP for the faux pas. “Dear Tamil Nadu BJP, we understand ‘consent’ is a difficult concept for you to understand but you cannot use Mrs Srinidhi Karti Chidambaram’s image without her permission,” the party wrote on Twitter. “All you’ve done is prove that your campaign is full of lies and propaganda.”
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