Actor Prasenjit Chatterjee's portrait unveiled as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose by President Ramnath Kovind?

Rashtrapati Bhawan on Monday rejected the rumours being peddled on social media sites that Subhas Chandra Bose’s portrait unveiled by President Ram Nath Kovind on his 125th birth anniversary was that of Bengali 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.

President Kovind unveils the portrait of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at Rashtrapati Bhavan to commemorate his 125th birth anniversary celebrations.

The official replied to the question after the matter went viral on Twitter, microblogging social network, 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”.

Among those ridiculing the portrait was Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, who tweeted: “After donating Rs 5 lakh to the Ram temple the President honours Netaji by unveiling a portrait of Prasenjit, the actor who played him in biopic God Save India (because this government certainly can’t).” She has now deleted the tweet.

Several posts on Twitter made a similar claim. This is unbelievably hilarious. The Portrait that President of India Unveiled, it is is of Actor Prosenjit who played role of Netaji (Look at Eyes). That’s like unveiling Portrait of Ajay Devgan as Bhagat Singh wrote one of the users.

BJP sources also rubbished the charge, asserting that the photo was provided by Netaji’s family to famous Padma Shri award winning artist Paresh Maity, who painted the portrait, reported NDTV.

“The photo does not resemble Prosenjit at all. It is an unnecessary controversy,” the sources said.

A user tweeted a photo of an actor directly, asking which actor would be suitable for a photo of Mahatma Gandhi.

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.