By Hazel Gandhi
A photo of President Draupadi Murmu standing while Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former deputy Prime Minister LK Advani are seated is viral online with the false claim that the president was disrespected by the PM and Advani.
BOOM found that the claims are false, other photos from the day show President Murmu sitting with PM Modi and LK Advani.
LK Advani was recently conferred with the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour in India, by President Draupadi Murmu in the presence of PM Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar, and others. The ceremony took place at LK Advani's residence, owing to his frail health and restriction of movement.
Photos of Murmu standing while LK Advani and PM Modi are seated are being circulated to criticise Modi for sitting while the president is standing, and in turn disrespecting her authority. A caption on X reads, "What a shame for president dropati murmu you are standing no chair for you. It shows Modi ji dalit love"
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Deputy Leader of the Shiv Sena and Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi shared the photo with the caption, "The lady standing is the President of India while the PM of India is seated. Caption the pic please?"
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Another user on Facebook shared the photo with a similar caption.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the claims are misleading, President Murmu is seen seated along with PM Modi and LK Advani in other photos from the event.
We ran a search for a video of the incident using relevant keywords and found a video shared by Modi's verified YouTube channel on March 31, 2024. The video was titled 'LIVE: President confers Bharat Ratna on Shri LK Advani Ji in PM Modi's presence'
The video shows Murmu standing, but another clip at 0:03 and 0:30 shows her seated with the two after she has given Advani the medal.
Further, we also noticed that while Murmu was conferring the award, other members of the audience including Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar and former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu were seated.
