CLAIM
A photo of Sambit Patra eating on a pavement with a homeless couple has gone viral. The photo was shared widely on Twitter, calling out the BJP spokesperson for the failures of the Modi government. Former actress-turned-Congress politician Nagma Morarji shared the photo with the statement that Patra had exposed all of Modi’s lies. Her tweet had 358 retweets and 939 likes at the time this story was published.
Many others also shared the viral photo with the same tweet or a version of it.
The intention behind sharing the photo was to draw attention to the plight of many Indians who have not been provided with amenities promised by the Modi government such as Ujwala Gas, Digital India, Electrification, Swacch Bharat and Smart city.
TRUE OR FALSE?
This photo has been doctored to make it appear like Patra is eating on the pavement with these two people. While a simple reverse image search did not work, flipping the image and conducting a reverse image search threw up results.
The Quint found that the above image was the original, in a 2016 article by India.com. The photo made it evident that Patra had been photoshopped into it.
The photo of Patra that was used to doctor the image in question was taken from his own Twitter post of 31 March.
The photo that was used was the one below.
Patra was clearly cropped out of this image and inserted in the original image.
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