Amidst India’s joyous celebration of the groundbreaking accomplishment of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission’s successful landing at the lunar south pole, West Bengal’s Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has unintentionally become the target of mockery due to a notable blunder. In an event held in Kolkata shortly before the Chandrayaan-3 lander achieved its lunar landing, Chief Minister Banerjee inadvertently interchanged astronaut Rakesh Sharma with Bollywood actor-filmmaker Rakesh Roshan.
Expressing her advance congratulations on behalf of West Bengal’s populace to ISRO, Banerjee underscored the deserving acknowledgment of scientists and the country. In her confusion, she stated, “When Rakesh Roshan [sic] landed on the moon, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him how India looked from there.”
To clarify, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian Air Force pilot, etched his name in history by becoming the first Indian to journey into space in 1984 during the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-11 mission. During a live televised news conference, he had the privilege of conversing with then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from space. In response to Gandhi’s query, “Upar se Bharat kaisa dikhta hai aapko?” (How does India appear from space?), Sharma eloquently quoted poet Iqbal, replying, “Saare jahaan se achcha” (Better than the entire world).
The Chief Minister’s mix-up instantly spread across social media, sparking a plethora of memes that humorously captured her oversight. Interestingly, Banerjee wasn’t the sole politician to encounter a Chandrayaan-3-related blunder. On a different note, a Rajasthan minister also stumbled into an amusing misstep by congratulating the “passengers” of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, despite the mission being unmanned.
Rajasthan Sports Minister Ashok Chandna exclaimed, “If we successfully achieve a safe landing, I salute the passengers. Our country has taken a significant stride in scientific and space exploration. I congratulate the nation for this,” as quoted by news agency PTI.
India achieved an unprecedented feat by becoming the pioneer in landing a spacecraft in proximity to the moon’s southern pole—a zone believed to harbor water ice. The historic touchdown transpired at 6:04 pm on Wednesday, eliciting jubilation and revelry at ISRO’s Bengaluru headquarters.
Over the subsequent 14 days, the rover Pragyan is poised to meticulously explore the lunar terrain, transmitting imagery and data to Earth’s scientific community, encapsulating a lunar day’s duration.
