Chhattisgarh’s PWD Minister posted a picture of a bridge on his Facebook page on Tuesday, claiming that it was an under-construction bridge across a river in Raigarh district of north Chhattisgarh. The picture, however, turned out to be that of a bridge in Vietnam.
Rajesh Munat, the BJP MLA from Raipur (West) constituency in Chhattisgarh and Minister for PWD, transport, housing and environment in the Raman Singh Cabinet, posted the bridge’s picture on his Facebook page at 11.59 p.m. on Tuesday. He claimed that it was a bridge being constructed across the Kelo river for Lamdaraha road in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh.
The minister received over 2,000 ‘likes’ and 155 comments on the post, which was shared by more than 150 people on the social network.
But an anonymous reader informed a news portal that the image posted by Mr. Munat was that of a bridge from Vietnam, and was taken from online portal Saigan Online.
A closure look at the minister’s post suggested that the picture was that of the Cho Chien Bridge in Mekong Delta area in southern Vietnam, which was inaugurated on May 16, 2016. The minister appears to have taken the bridge’s image from a news report on Saigan Online portal.
Despite repeated attempts, Mr. Munat could not be reached for his reaction as his phone was switched off.
The minister removed the post from his Facebook page, but came under criticism on social media sites.
The Hindu managed to get a screenshot of the post before it was deleted.
Mr. Munat is the second BJP leader to face flak for sharing a wrong image on social media in recent times. Union Minister Piyush Goyal had recently shared a picture from another country to showcase an LED-lit street in India.