Mallikarjun Kharge

Mallikarjun Kharge, born on July 21, 1942 in Bidar district of the then Hyderabad. He is an Indian politician and currently holds the position of the President of the Indian National Congress, since October 2022. Kharge also holds the office of leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha from February 2021. He began his political journey from Congress in 1969 and his electoral career began with his election as an MLA from the Gurmitkal Assembly constituency in Karnataka in 1972. He won the assembly elections consecutively from 1972 to 2008. He then was elected as a Member of Parliament from the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency in 2009 and re-elected in 2014. Kharge was Minister of Labour and Employment from May 2009 to June 2013 and subsequently served as the Minister of Railways until May 2014. In the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, he was the leader of opposition from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2008 to 2009.

In April 2024, BOOM debunked a claim made on X and Facebook, that a photo shows Mallikarjun Kharge not clapping for PV Narasimha Rao's posthumous Bharat Ratna award.

We found that a full video of the ceremony where Kharge was present, shows him clapping when the award was announced. The screenshot was taken from a specific part of the ceremony when Kharge was not clapping; a full video of the award being given to Prabhakar Rao shows that Kharge did clap when former Congress leader PV Narasimha Rao's name was announced.

Another misleading video of Kharge was debunked by BOOM in March 2024, which claimed “Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge says that his party divides India”. We found that the claims are false, a longer version of the video shows Kharge attributing the statement to PM Modi and criticizing him for his views. It was cropped out of context to mislead the people.