By Swasti Chatterjee
A video of a woman dancing to Jubin Nautiyal's song Mere Ghar Ram Aaye Hain has gone viral with captions misidentifying her as the former District Collector of Sambalpur, Odisha, Ananya Das. BOOM found that the woman in the video is dancer Mradula Mahajan.
The video is circulating after the 'pran pratishtha' or consecration ceremony of Hindu deity Ram at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024. In the run up to the ceremony, content creators have been engaged in producing a variety of content with popular songs depicting the return of Ram to Ayodhya in the background.
The video is circulating on Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) with the caption, "Dance performance by Sambalpur collector Mrs Ananya Das (IAS)*जय श्री राम".
One such post on X received more than 1.3 lakh views at the time of writing this article.
Fact Check
BOOM first scanned the replies of the post and found a quote-post by Ananya Das who denied that it's her in the video. In the caption, Das wrote, 'Truly a good performance- sadly not mine.'
We then ran a reverse image search on the keyframes of the viral video and was directed to the video on Facebook, shared by one Mradula Mahajan on January 20, 2024.
Mahajan had posted the performance of herself on the song with the caption "राम लल्ला के आने की खूब खूब बधाईया" (Translation: Many many congratulations on the arrival of Ram Lalla). Mahajan infact called out the captions which misidentified her as Ananya Das.
The same video was shared by Mahajan on her Instagram account on January 6, 2024. Mahajan dedicated the video to the 'homecoming of Lord Ram.' We have reached out to Mahajan, the article will be updated when we get a response.
Additionally, BOOM reached out to the District Collectorate office of Sambalpur and learnt that Ananya Das has been appointed as the Joint Secretary to Government, Handloom Textiles & Handicrafts Department and is now based in Bhubaneshwar. Das has been succeeded by Akshay Agrawal as the DC of Sambalpur.
