In a bid to quell the negative press and burgeoning protests in Punjab and Haryana around BJP’s Farm Bills, two of which were passed in the Rajya Sabha amidst a furore raised by the opposition and BJP’s own ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal, the news agency ANI interviewed 4 farmers who voiced their support in favour of the Bill.
However, Twitter was quick to point out apparent similarities between the farmer’s interviewed and a particular scene from Dibakar Banerjee’s Khosla Ka Ghosla.
This was ANI’s original post:
Pratik Sinha, founder of the fact-checking website Alt News, pointed out that ANI’s post gives out the impression that these are farmers from different parts of Kanpur district but all of them are sitting around the same tree.
Many also pointed out that the gamcha one farmer is wearing across his neck turns into a turban, placed on the head of another farmer.
In the next few hours, Film Twitter was reminded of the scene from Dibakar Banerjee’s 2006 comedy Khosla Ka Ghosla, where the greedy land shark Khurana (Boman Irani) is deceived by Khosla (Ranvir Shorey) and his family into buying a plot of land that originally belongs to the Fisheries Department.
The Khoslas conceive the plan as an act of revenge after being duped and blackmailed by Khurana earlier.
In a scene, when Khurana visits the land for an ‘inspection’, Khosla’s father (Anupam Kher) and some of their other friends from a theatre group wear the typical red gamcha and pretend to be labourers to make their act look genuine.
Twitter wasted no time in pointing out the similarities between Banerjee’s film and ANI’s reporting.