2007 World Cup Winning Team Didn't ONLY Meet Sonia Gandhi, They Also Met PM

A photo of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi posing with the 2007 Indian cricket World Cup winning team is going viral on social media.

Along with social media users, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell chief Amit Malviya, also shared the same photo to claim that Gandhi was not at the Prime Ministerial position in 2007 but she still met with the team because of 'her privilege'.

The claim also insinuates that the then PM Manmohan Singh did not get the opportunity to meet the team.

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What's the truth?: This claim is misleading. Several archival photos and reports prove that the winning team also met with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 30 October 2007.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on the viral image and this led us to the same image shared by Getty Images.

• The description of the image stated that then Chairperson of India's UPA Government and Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi posed for a photo with the Indian cricket team during a meeting at Gandhi's residence in New Delhi, 30 October 2007.

A very similar image on Getty Images also stated that the 20-20 Cricket World Cup winners (2007) also met with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Indian president Pratibha Patil.

• Taking a cue, we performed a relevant keyword search on Google using 'Manmohan Singh meets cricket team 2007 world cup' and this led us to a report by Times of India.

• It was published on 31 October 2007 and it carried images of the team with Singh.

• It also stated that Singh was accompanied by Ambika Soni, Prithviraj Chavan, Rajeev Shukla and more.

• We found more images from 30 October 2007 showing Singh with the 2007 20-20 Cricket World Cup winners and those can be seen here, here and here.

• Here's an image from the same day that shows the team with several leaders, including the PM.

We also found images from the same event on PMO archives.

Conclusion: Clearly, the claim about only Sonia Gandhi meeting the Indian cricket World Cup team in 2007 is misleading.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)