New Delhi: A picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi purportedly bowing down to Nita Ambani, wife of industrialist Mukesh Ambani, has gone viral on social media.
The image, originally from 2018, however, is photoshopped. The woman in the original photograph is not Ambani but a social worker.
In a now deleted tweet, former Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar shared the viral image with over 35,000 of his followers.
“In a mature democracy, we would know the two-way relationship, favours, transactions. Some day, history will tell us,” the retired civil servant had written. His tweet was shared over 500 times before it was deleted about an hour after posting.
Ambani’s face appears to have been lifted from an old picture posted by Reliance Industries on Facebook in 2014.
After deleting his tweet, Sircar admitted that the picture was fake but shared a photograph from 2014 of the Ambani couple with PM Modi. “What’s not fake are his deep bonds with richest Gujs + their incredible growth in his tenure + bonhomie for them,” Sircar wrote. In the photo, all three can be seen smiling.
Forsyth’s classic ‘Dogs of War’ DoW became hit movie in 1980. Ihad terrible experience as 2 photos of Modi r claimed as fake. What’s not fake are his deep bonds with richest Gujs + their incredible growth in his tenure + bonhomie for them. Wonder what crass DoW will now bark? pic.twitter.com/hITgU1kjfC
— Jawhar Sircar (@jawharsircar) June 7, 2021
Sircar drew backlash on Twitter for sharing the fake image, including from Union Minister Anurag Thakur who called on him to apologise and for Twitter to take action.
UPA appointee fmr CEO Prasar Bharati has shared a morphed image of the Hon. Prime Minister.
Will he apologise to the nation?
Will Twitter India take action?Factcheck: https://t.co/BENYYNrzQv https://t.co/XJOLMs9jmp
— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) June 7, 2021
Sharing Morph pic to payback his masters at 10JP, this @jawharsircar was CEO of Prasar Bharati. He has been doing this to seek better remuneration from Con-IT gang pic.twitter.com/vOGm5KHmO9
— Mihir Jha ✍️ (@MihirkJha) June 7, 2021
Fact check
The original photograph was first published by One India Hindi in 2018. According to the article, the image was clicked in 2015.
The woman in the original picture is Deepika Mondol, a social worker who heads a Delhi-based NGO called Divya Jyoti Cultural Organisation and Welfare Society.
This is not the first time the image of Modi and Mondol has been photoshopped and shared extensively. In December 2020, several social media users shared the image in which Mondol’s face was edited with the face of Priti Adani, wife of billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani.
National vice-chairman of the Kisan Congress, Surendra Solanki, was among those who had then asserted that the woman was Priti Adani. It was also shared on the popular Facebook page ‘Political guruji’.
In 2019, a similar image of PM Modi purportedly bowing before Adani’s wife went viral. However, the woman in the original picture was the former Mayor of Tumkur, a city in Karnataka.
In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer
Also read: Viral photo of Sonia Gandhi with Christian conversion book in background is morphed