A post is being shared on social media with a claim that Suriname’s President Chandrikapersad Santokhi will be the Chief Guest for 2021 Republic Day celebration.
“गणतंत्र दिवस 2021 के अवसर पर सूरीनाम के राष्ट्रपति चन्द्रिकाप्रसाद संतोखी होंगे मुख्य अतिथि, ” the text on the post read.
(Translation: President of Suriname Chandrikaprasad Santokhi will be the chief guest on the occasion of Republic Day 2021.)
Here’s the link to the above post.
More links can be seen here and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found the claim to be false.
Firstly, we ran a keyword search and found that there would be ‘NO’ chief guest this year.
According to the report by the Financial express, this is the first time in five decades that India will be celebrating its Republic Day without any foreign leader as chief guest.
Originally, India had invited British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the Chief Guest for the 72nd Republic Day celebrations. However, the UK PM called off his India visit due to outbreak of new coronavirus cases, the Financial Express report stated.
The same was also mentioned in reports by Outlook India and India TV News.
“Due to the global Covid-19 situation, it has been decided that this year, there will not be a foreign head of state or head of government as the chief guest for our Republic Day event,” News agency ANI quoted Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava as saying.
We then search for Suriname President Chandrikapersad Santokhi and found that he was in news for delivering a keynote address as a chief guest for 16th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) convention. We also found a Press Release by the Ministry of External Affairs regarding the same dated January 07, 2021.
The above information proves that the viral post is false.
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