An image purportedly showing Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge sitting separately on a sofa while Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have breakfast with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is being widely shared on social media.
Those sharing the image claim that Kharge was made to sit separately from the dining table because he is a Dalit.
The image is being shared in the backdrop of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi’s meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in New Delhi on September 13.
A Facebook user posted the viral post with the following caption:
दिन-रात दलित-दलित चिल्लाने वाले राहुल गांधी के नाश्ते की टेबल पर दलित नेता मल्लिकार्जुन खड़गे के लिए जगह ही नहीं है।
देखिये बेचारे कहाँ बैठे हैं !🤣😂
Day and night, the Dalit leaders are shouting and there’s no place for them at Rahul Gandhi’s breakfast table.
Look where the poor guys are sitting! 🤣😂
You can check the post here.
NM VERIFIED
NewsMobile investigated the viral post and found the claims to be false.
During our investigation, we found the original photograph posted on the Congress party’s official Instagram and X accounts on September 13. A comparison with the viral image showed that the sofa on which Kharge is purportedly sitting is empty in the original photograph.
The caption accompanying the Congress party’s post identified the photograph as being from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi’s meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
We also found photographs of the meeting shared on Anwar Ibrahim’s official X account. These images similarly do not show Kharge sitting on the sofa as depicted in the viral image.
Several social media users had separately raised questions about Kharge’s absence from the meeting. However, the viral image appears to have been subsequently manipulated to insert him onto the empty sofa, and then shared with the claim that he had been deliberately made to sit separately.
We further analysed the viral image using OpenAI’s image verification tool. The analysis detected an OpenAI SynthID watermark, indicating that the image had been altered using OpenAI’s AI tools.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral post, claiming to show Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge sitting separately on a sofa while Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have breakfast with the Malaysian Prime Minister, is false.
