A photo of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi dining with his family at a restaurant is viral falsely linking it to former prime minister Manmohan Singh's death, claiming the family travelled to Vietnam during the mourning period.
BOOM found the claim to be false. The photo of the Gandhi family was taken at Kwality Restaurant on December 22, 2024, before Dr Manmohan Singh's death.
Veteran Congress leader Singh, passed away on December 26, 2024, at the age of 92, following deteriorating health. Singh who also served as India's finance minister, was the longest serving prime minister of the country and spearheaded several key liberalising economic reforms
The viral picture shows the Gandhis - Rahul and Sonia at a restaurant, seated with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her husband Robert and daughter Miraya.
Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress have exchanged barbs with each other over events surrounding Singh's death and the funeral that followed. Congress at first accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of disrespecting Singh after the government announced that the last rites would be conducted at a public crematorium. In response, the BJP accused Rahul Gandhi of travelling abroad "to party" even as the nation mourned former Singh.
A verified X user shared the photo with a caption, "Antonio's family mourning the demise of former PM Manmohan Singh in Vietnam".
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on the photo and found it used with an article published on December 23, 2024, in Outlook Traveller. The article and the photo caption identified the restaurant as Kwality restaurant in Delhi.
Rahul Gandhi shared the same photo captioning it as a "family lunch at the iconic Kwality restaurant", further recommending the establishment's Chole Bhature. We looked up the restaurant and found that it is an 84-year-old establishment in Connaught Place area of Delhi, and not Vietnam as being claimed.
Click here to view the post.
Following the announcement of Singh's death, the Union government declared a state mourning for seven days starting from December 26, 2024, the day of his passing to January 1, 2025. Gandhi shared the photo from his official Instagram account on December 22, 2024, four days before Singh's death.
