Old visuals shared with misleading claim of Manmohan Singh being ‘disrespected’ by Gandhis – Alt News
Fact check

Old visuals shared with misleading claim of Manmohan Singh being ‘disrespected’ by Gandhis – Alt News

By Andrew McCollum

Manmohan Singh’s birthday on September 26 sparked the usual rhetoric circulated to target the former Prime Minister. Several photographs were shared to portray that he was sidelined by the Congress party during his tenure as PM and was also publicly disrespected by the Gandhis. Below is a tweet by BJP supporter Rishi Bagree.

The same photographs were shared by Bagree in 2018 and 2020. Apart from the pictures, some users shared a 15-second video clip that shows Sonia Gandhi passing by Singh without greeting the ex-PM or acknowledging his presence.

This video has also been circulating for the past few years. It was shared by the official handle of @BJP4Karnataka and BJP supporters Ritu Rathaur and Mahesh Vikram Hegde.

Fact-check

Image 1

This photograph was taken when Congress President Sonia Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh and other Congress leaders met Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on November 23, 2017.

Manmohan Singh was not the Prime Minister when the meeting was held. Sri Lankan PM Ranil Wickremesinghe met opposition leaders. Sonia Gandhi was the President of the Congress party at the time. (She took over as the President again in August 2019.)

Image 2

This picture was taken when Congress President Sonia Gandhi and ex-PM Manmohan Singh met with Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina on October 6, 2019. Alt News had debunked this earlier when it was shared with the similar narrative that Singh was sidelined by Sonia Gandhi when he was the Prime Minister. According to Hindustan Times, the Congress party stated that the meeting had taken place due to a “special bond of friendship” between the Awami League and the Congress party. Singh was present at the meeting in the capacity of a senior Congress leader.

Image 3

This photograph was taken on July 19, 2012, in Parliament during the Presidential elections. We found two photographs on AP Images and Getty. Manmohan Singh is casting his vote.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We also found a video of the moment when Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee and other opposition leaders were seen casting presidential votes. At 1:02 seconds, security personnel can be seen gesturing Pranab Mukherjee to cast his vote next, while Pranab Mukherjee can be seen gesturing Sonia Gandhi to cast her vote after Manmohan Singh.

Alt News had also penned an article when L K Advani’s picture was shared with a similar misleading narrative.

Image 4

This photograph was taken at Talkatora stadium after the flag-hoisting ceremony during the AICC session in New Delhi on January 17, 2014. With a keyword search, we came across the full video of the event shared on YouTube by Zee News. At 3:36, Dr Manmohan Singh can be seen greeting Sushil Kumar Shinde standing next to Rahul Gandhi when he was looking the other side. A photograph taken at this very moment is misrepresented as Gandhi ignoring Singh’s greeting when in fact, Singh’s gesture was meant for Shinde.

Video

A clipped portion of the video that shows Sonia Gandhi passing by Manmohan Singh has been circulating for years to portray that she ignored Manmohan Singh when he was trying to greet her. Gandhi merely walked to the stage after her arrival. This can be watched at 20 seconds in the above video. Any suggestions that she purposely ignored Singh are only based on biased assumptions. There isn’t a way to check intention. However, at around the 3:20 mark, she greets Singh and other Congress leaders when she ascends from the stage.

Therefore, several visuals were taken out of context or shared with misleading messages to falsely portray Manmohan Singh being disrespected by Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi when he was the Prime Minister.

Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people contribute towards the same. Please consider donating in support of this endeavour to fight misinformation and disinformation.

Donate Now

To make an instant donation, click on the “Donate Now” button above. For information regarding donation via Bank Transfer/Cheque/DD, click here.

For all the latest Fact Check News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News. 

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TheDailyCheck is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected] The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Andrew McCollum