Lucknow: The Lucknow Police have filed an FIR against Lalit Agarwal, the brother of UP Skill Development Minister Kapil Dev Agarwal, and several others on charges of fraudulently using photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to promote a “swadeshi” mobile phone company.
Lalit Agarwal runs an advertising firm.
According to the FIR, which ThePrint has accessed, a case has been registered at the Hazratganj police station following the accusation that the promotional material gave a false impression that the company had the backing of Modi and Adityanath.
A senior police official in the Lucknow Police told ThePrint that another advertising firm, which is run by a leading Hindi newspaper, is also involved in the case. “The newspaper’s general manager has been named in the FIR,” the officer said.
A source in Lucknow Police told ThePrint that the minister’s brother and the advertising firm run by the Hindi newspaper got together to promote the mobile phone brand through a marketing campaign that played up its indigenous origins.
“After the matter came to light, hoardings having images of the PM and the CM were pulled down,” the source said.
The minister, however, defended his brother saying they were only invited by the company as guests for the event. “I had no idea that they would use the PM and CM’s photos for promotion,” he told reporters Tuesday. “Now they are apologising for it. My brother is being made a scapegoat. There is no clarity in the FIR and he will be cleared of all the charges.”
ThePrint reached Lalit Agarwal through phone but he was unavailable for a comment.
The promotional campaign
Several promotional hoardings with photos of Modi and Yogi were put up for InBlock smartphones manufactured by Fesschain, a indigenous blockchain technology company that is a subsidiary of JaiTech India.
The phones were officially launched at a hotel in Lucknow on 22 December in an event attended by ministers Kapil Agarwal and Neelima Katiyar.
Since the controversy, however, the company’s founder and CEO Durga Prasad Tripathi has apologised in a statement, saying it was a mistake to use the images of the prime minister and the chief minister on the brand’s invitation banners in Lucknow without their permission.
He has not been named in the FIR.
“Tripathi was not named in the FIR as his name was not known at the time it was registered,” said the Lucknow Police official quoted above.
UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu, however, demanded a CBI inquiry in the matter. “They can do anything in the name of swadeshi,” he said. “It is very pitiful that the skill development minister was himself present in an event that his brother used the PM’s & CM’s pictures for promotion of a mobile brand. This is a clear case of corruption.”
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