By Anmol Alphonso
A photo of an Amul ad sporting the iconic Amul girl along with text taking a dig at the Narendra Modi government for Goods and Service Tax (GST) hike on some daily essential items, is edited and fake.
BOOM reached out to Rahul Da Cunha, one of the creative directors of the Amul advertisements since 1994, who confirmed that the viral ad is edited from a 2014 Amul cartoon.
The GST Council in its 47th meeting had decided to for a rate hike from July 18, 2022 on several daily essential items including pre-packed, pre-labelled curd, lassi and butter milk, which will now attract GST at the rate of 5 per cent, as opposed from their previous exempt status
The Amul girl is the official mascot of the dairy company which takes a 'delicious' take on political and current events through its cartoons.
The viral photo has illustrations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in Amul's trademark style taking a selfie with the Amul girl.
The text on the ad reads, "Ab Ki Baar GST Ka Maar". (In English: Next time GST's battering)
The viral ad was tweeted by Krishan, Social Media Convenor, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), with the caption, "Galat Sarkar Tax 5% Hike on Milk"
Click here to view
The same ad is viral on Twitter and was also tweeted by Gandra Venkataramana Reddy, Telangana Rashtra Samithi member of the Telangana Legislative Assembly for the Bhupalpalle constituency.
Click here to view
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral Amul ad is edited from a 2014 Amul cartoon released after the BJP's general election victory under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014.
We ran a selected keyword search and found the same cartoon mentioned in news articles with the original text congratulating BJP for winning the 2014 election and coming to power.
Taking the hint that the original cartoon was released by Amul in May 2014, we then ran a Twitter advance search which led us to a tweet by Amul with the text "Ab Ki Baar, Bhajap Sweekar".
In this original cartoon, the caption is about BJP's 2014 election victory and not on GST. A comparison shows that the text, "Ab Ki Baar GST Ka Maar" has been edited into the ad to share it with the false claim.
BOOM also reached out to Rahul Da Cunha, one of the creative directors of the Amul advertisements since 1994, who confirmed that the viral ad is fake.
"It has been fully photoshopped," Da Cunha told BOOM and also sent us the original 2014 ad and other two Amul ads that the company has released around GST. None of these Amul ads were hitting out at GST.
BOOM has previously debunked misinformation around Amul ads which were shared with false claims.
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