Photo of PV Narasimha Rao's Bharat Ratna Shared With False Claims About Kharge

In a video shared on the President of India's YouTube channel, Kharge is seen clapping when the award is announced.

A photo of former PM PV Narasimha Rao's Bharat Ratna ceremony is being shared with false claims about Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Sharing a photograph from the 2024 Bharat Ratna ceremony, social media users claimed that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge did not applaud when former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao's son received the honour on his late father's behalf.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

This post by an X user had garnered 60,000 views at the time of writing this report.

(Archives of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No. A video of the ceremony shows Kharge applauding when Rao's son walks up to President Droupadi Murmu to receive the award.

How did we find out?: We ran a reverse image search on the photo to find the its source, and found that it was shared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official X account.

The same photo was shared by PM Modi's official account on X.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

• This confirmed that the photo was not tampered with.

• Next, we looked for visuals of the Bharat Ratna award ceremony on the President of India's verified YouTube channel.

• It had published videos of the event on 31 March 2024, a day after it was held.

• Here, we came across a video of PV Prabhakar Rao receiving the Bharat Ratna on his late father's behalf.

• Kharge can clearly been seen clapping seven seconds into this video.

Here is a screenshot which shows Kharge's hands raised while he was clapping.

Kharge can clearly be seen clapping when Rao receives the award.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

Conclusion: A photograph taken during the ceremony for former PM PV Narasimha Rao's posthumously receiving the Bharat Ratna is being shared with the false claim that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge did not clap during the ceremony.

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