Did Mamata Banerjee Walk Away While the National Anthem Was Playing? No!

A longer video from March 2022 showed the West Bengal CM walking away after the national anthem concluded.

Fact-Check | The video has been heavily edit to make it appear like WB CM Mamata Banerjee walked away during the national anthem.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video purportedly showing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee walking away while the national anthem could be heard playing is being shared on the internet as a recent incident.

What have users said?: Those sharing the video have captioned it saying, "*_India's National Anthem is no longer finished, Mamata is already running. Where does the country's devotion to such a pro-Muslim Irori come from? (sic)."

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(More archives of similar such claims could be viewed here, here, and here.)

What's the truth?: The video has been heavily edited. A longer video, which dates back to March 2022, showed Banerjee walking away after the national anthem concluded.

• Moreover, a band was heard playing an instrumental version of the national anthem in the longer version.

Hints in the video: On closely observing the viral video, we noticed that it carried a watermark that said "Getty Images".

The viral video had a watermark.

(Source: Viral video/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

Finding similar visuals: Taking this forward, we conducted a reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral video using the help of Google Lens.

• This directed us to a clip uploaded on stock image website — Getty Images.

• Its caption said, "KOLKATA, INDIA - MARCH 23: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during a programme for the widow pension scheme at Netaji Indoor Stadium, on March 23, 2022 in Kolkata, India..."

• The video showed an instrumental version of the national anthem playing in the background. Banerjee was seen walking off the stage after the conclusion of the national anthem.

The video was uploaded on 23 March 2022.

(Source: Getty Images/Screenshot)

Other sources: Another round of reverse image search led us to a longer version of the video uploaded on a Facebook handle named 'Trinabhoomi Foundation'.

• It was shared on 23 March 2022 and its caption when translated to English said, "Hon'ble Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the payment of widow allowance to new applicants at Netaji Indoor Stadium."

• At around the 29:32 timestamp, one can see Banerjee and other people standing at attention position while an instrumental version of the national anthem can be heard playing.

Conclusion: It is evident that the video is old and has been heavily edited to make it appear like Banerjee walked away during the national anthem.

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