By Anmol Alphonso
An old photo of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Congress President Sonia Gandhi in a meeting with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is being shared on social media with the false claim that Sonia Gandhi was heading the meeting despite Manmohan Singh being the Prime Minister of India.
BOOM found that the viral photo is from October 2019, when Manmohan Singh wasn't the Prime Minister and the Bangladesh PM had met with a delegation of Congress leaders during her visit to India.
The viral photo is being shared with the caption when translated reads, "Once the Congress's Prime Minister of our country also went on a visit to Bangladesh.Look at the way he is sitting on the side as if he is an ordinary minister."
(In Hindi - एक बार हमारे देश के कांग्रेसी प्रधानमंत्री भी बांग्लादेश की यात्रा पर गए थे. देखिए किस तरह से साइड में बैठे हैं जैसे कोई मामूली मंत्री हो)
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The viral photo is also being shared on Facebook with the same misleading claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral photo is from October 2019 when Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on a four-day visit to India, and had met with a delegation of Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Anand Sharma and others in New Delhi.
BOOM Hindi had previously fact-checked the same photo in March 2023, when it was being shared with the same false claim.
We ran a reverse image search using Google and found several news reports from October 2019 which had reported on Hasina's visit to India and her meeting with senior Congress leaders including then Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Former PM Manmohan Singh.
We can see the same viral photo in the below NDTV article from October 2019.
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Congress's official X handle had posted about this on October 6, 2019, with several photos from the meeting. The tweet stated that then Congress President Sonia Gandhi, former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, Rajya Sabha MP Shri Anand Sharma and the INC delegation met with the Bangladesh Prime Minister.
We also found several TV news reports of this meeting including a video uploaded on the YouTube channel of news agency ANI on October 6, 2019, with the caption reading, "Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on October 6. During this, Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi and Anand Sharma were also present during the meeting. Prime Minister Hasina is on a 4-day visit to India."
