INDIA: In a big gaffe, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated at an event that “Indira Gandhi had asked Rakesh Roshan about how India seemed when he had reached the moon.”
This confusion between astronaut Rakesh Sharma and Bollywood actor-director Rakesh Roshan, the father of Hrithik Roshan, led to a viral video clip.
Shortly after Isro’s Chandrayaan 3 successfully made a soft landing on the south pole of the moon on Wednesday, Mamata Banerjee was giving a speech at a gathering in Kolkata.
The BJP’s national spokesperson, Shehzad Poonawalla, posted the video on X (Formerly known as Twitter), by writing, “Had no clue Indira ji had this conversation with Rakesh Roshan! Thank you Didi ((Sometimes this hatred for our current achievements & attempt to glorify one family can have funny repercussions))”
Rakesh Sharma went into space for the first time as an Indian in 1984. During a live broadcast news conference, the astronaut communicated with Indira Gandhi, who was prime minister at the time, from space.
Rakesh Sharma didn’t travel to the moon either. He was in space when he spoke to Indira Gandhi. Sharma responded to Indira Gandhi’s query, “Upar se Bharat kaisa dikhta hai aapko? (How does India look from space?)” with “Sare jahan see accha (Better that the whole world).”
Mamata Banerjee was not the only minister to make a mistake in this regard. This led to political leaders like Ashok Chandna, Rajasthan’s sports minister, and Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s chief minister, displaying their ignorance about India’s successful moon trip.
Rajasthan’s minister of sports, Ashok Chandna, praised the countrymen for successfully landing Chandrayaan-3 on the moon, by adding “If we are successful and make a safe landing, I salute the passengers.”
Even though Chandrayaan 3 was an unmanned mission, the Rajasthan minister congratulated the “passengers” on the mission hours before it touched down.
Before the soft landing, Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, was questioned about Chandrayaan 3. He probably asked the minister who was with him since he could not comprehend the question.
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