Viral Photo Does Not Show Manmohan Singh Touching Sonia Gandhi's Feet

An image of a man touching Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's feet has surfaced on social media misidentifying him as the late Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

BOOM found the original image from 2011 and was able to confirm that the man touching Sonia Gandhi's feet is a representative of the Congress party and not Manmohan Singh. Singh breathed his last on December 26, 2024 at the age of 92. Hours before Singh's last rites were performed a political slugfest began between Congress and the BJP with the former accusing the Modi government of disrespecting Singh by organising his last rites at a public crematorium.

The image was debunked in 2020, when it went viral with the same claim.

The post has been shared on X with the caption, "Kaha gaye chamche."

See archive here.

BOOM also received the image for verification on its helpline number.

Fact Check

BOOM ran a reverse image search on the viral image which led us to the original, clear photograph uploaded on the stock photography website Getty Images. It identifies the man touching Sonia Gandhi's feet as a representative of the Indian National Congress.

The photograph was taken at the Indian Youth Congress Convention on December 29, 2011 and was captioned as, "NEW DELHI, INDIA - NOVEMBER 29: A representative touches the feet of Sonia Gandhi as Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi looks on during the Indian Youth Congress's national level convention of Elected Office Bearers in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Photo by Shekhar Yadav/The India Today Group via Getty Images)"

See image here.

To further verify, we went through more photographs from the Indian Youth Congress Convention and found that Manmohan Singh was wearing a blue turban as opposed to the viral image where the man touching Gandhi's feet is in an orange turban.

Below is a photograph of Singh with other Congress dignitaries from the same event.

Several other photographs featuring Singh from the convention can be seen here and here.