Shimla: Amidst her Lok Sabha election crusade in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, Bollywood luminary and BJP aspirant Kangana Ranaut finds herself ensnared in a burgeoning photo scandal. Addressing a pervasively shared photograph depicting her alongside underworld personality Abu Salem, Ranaut resorted to Instagram to repudiate any affiliation with the criminal figure.
The imbroglio ignited when the image, portraying Ranaut with Abu Salem, emerged on Facebook under the profile of Gurvaksh Singh Thakur, a self-proclaimed Congress spokesperson. BJP Election Cell Secretary Jagdish Sharma filed a grievance with Chief Electoral Officer Manish Garg, alleging the Congress of engineering a character assassination plot against Ranaut.
In her Instagram disclosure, Ranaut elucidated that the photograph was captured during a film promotional event, where she was positioned beside Mark Manuel, an erstwhile entertainment editor associated with a prominent English daily. Ranaut castigated the propagation of the fraudulent image as a disgraceful maneuver by the Congress party, underscoring that it was a calculated effort to tarnish her reputation amidst the ongoing electoral contest.
Engaging with the media, Jagdish Sharma articulated, “We have arrived to file a complaint regarding a photograph disseminated by Gurvaksh Singh Thakur, a Congress spokesperson from Karsog block, depicting BJP candidate from Mandi, Kangana Ranaut with criminal Abu Salem. Ranaut has also denounced the Congress party’s defamation campaign and clarified that the person in the image was Mark Manuel, not Abu Salem.”
As the electoral skirmish intensifies in Mandi, both factions are exhausting every avenue to influence public sentiment in their favor.
