By Sk Badiruddin
A short footage is viral on social media, purportedly showing outgoing Indian President Ram Nath Kovind greeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his hands folded, while Modi appears to look at the camera instead. The captions shared with the clip insinuate that Modi disrespected Kovind by not greeting him back.
BOOM found this claim to be misleading; we looked at the uncropped video from Sansad TV's YouTube channel, which showed Modi greeting Kovind back with his hands folded. This viral video was strategically cropped right after this instance, and shared out of context to make it seem like he ignored Kovind's greetings.
On July 23, 2022, a farewell event was organised at the Central Hall of the Parliament to commemorate the end of Kovind's tenure as president. On July 24, he shall relinquish his presidential duties, which shall then be taken over by President Elect Droupadi Murmu on July 25. It is in this backdrop that the viral video is being shared.
The six-second clip was shared widely on Twitter by multiple prominent handles. Most of the captions were ambiguous in nature, and insinuated indirectly that Modi was only fixated on the cameras instead of greeting Kovind back.
Congress leader Karti P Chidambaram wrote, "Offered without any comments," while Telangana Rashtra Samiti leader Jagan Patimeedi wrote, "What did you notice?"
Click here to see the archived Tweet.
Click here to view an archive of the tweet above.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh tweeted the same video with a caption that made a direct reference to the supposed disrespect Modi showed to Kovind by not greeting him back.
View the archived Tweet.
Others prominent handles to tweet this video include TRS leader Y. Sathish Reddy, Congress leader Supriya Shrinate and Sweden-based Professor of Peace and Conflict Research Ashok Swain.
The video has also been shared widely on Facebook with a claim in Telugu reads as English as, "Go away with your photo madness. When you saluted Ramnath Kovind garu for leaving there, the interest you had was on the photo, and not on him"
(Original text in Telugu: నీ ఫోటోల పిచ్చి తగలెయ్య... అక్కడ రాంనాథ్ కొవింద్ గారు బయల్దేరుతున్నా అని దండం పెడితే నీకు ఫోటో మీదున్న ఇంట్రస్టు ఆయన మీదలేకపాయే దండం రా సామీ)
View two Facebook posts here and here.
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Fact Check
BOOM noticed Sansad TV's logo on the video and searched for the original clip on the official YouTube channel of Sansad TV.
On July 23, 2022, the footage from the event, of 8.57 minutes in length, was uploaded by Sansad TV. It was titled, "President Kovind's departure from the Central Hall of Parliament | Farewell function."
After delivering his farewell speech, Kovind is seen walking among the attendees and greeting them with folded hands, while accompanied by Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President of India.
At the 59 second mark, Kovind is seen turning to Modi, following which they both greet each other with folded hands. Here is a screenshot of this exact moment from the Sansad TV video.
Additionally, an image was tweeted at 7:53 PM on July 23 from the official handle of President of Indian (@rashtrapatibhvn) which shows Modi exchanging greetings with Kovind.
After greeting Kovind briefly with his hands folded, Modi is then seen looking at the cameras while Kovind goes on to great Union Minister Piyush Goyal. This brief moment was then cropped and made viral with misleading context.
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