WATCH | 'When Indira Gandhi reached the Moon': West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee's latest gaffe after Rakesh Roshan

After sending film director Rakesh Roshan to the Moon, misinterpreting him with Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made a fresh gaffe. She has now claimed that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi went to the lunar surface. Addressing a rally on the occasion of the foundation day anniversary of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the Trinamool’s student wing, Banerjee recalled India’s first trip  to space under Indira Gandhi’s tenue. “When Indira Gandhi reached the Moon, she asked Rakesh (Sharma) how does Hindustan (India) look from there. He replied ‘Sare jahaan se achcha’ (the best in the world),” Banerjee said. Clips of the West Bengal CM’s latest faux pas have been going viral and shared widely on X, formerly called Twitter. Watch the video here

Congratulating the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 23 August, 2023, for the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 mission of the south pole of the lunar surface, the Trinamool Congress chief said Indira Gandhi asked ‘Rakesh Roshan’ how India looks from the Moon. In her earlier statement, she made two factually incorrect remarks. Firstly she said that it was Rakesh Sharma, then a pilot with the Indian Air Force (IAF), and not director-actor Rakesh Roshan, the father of actor Hrithik Roshan who went to the moon. Secondly, Sharma did not go to the Moon; he flew to the then-Soviet Union’s Salyut 7 Orbital Station in the low Earth orbit, participating in a Soviet space mission. Last week (on 23 August), India scripted history as ISRO’s ambitious third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3’s Lander Module (LM) touched down on the Moon’s surface making the country only the fourth to accomplish the feat, and the first to reach the uncharted South Pole of Earth’s only natural satellite.