A photo showing a Christian cross on a sphere, in the office of the newly appointed chairperson of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) board Bollineni Rajagopal (BR) Naidu — who also owns Telugu news channel TV5 — was shared on social media.
Those sharing the photo have claimed that Naidu belongs to the Christian community, owing to the religious symbolism in his office.
An archive of this post can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
(An archived version of another post sharing this claim can be seen here.)
But...?: The photo has been altered to include the cross.
The original photo shows an object resembling a trophy, with a spherical top.
How did we find out the truth?: We ran a keyword search using Naidu's name on social media platforms.
On Instagram, we came across a photo of a person congratulating Naidu on being appointed as the chairperson of the TTD, which was clicked inside his office.
The shelf in the background showed the object in question, but without the cross on it.
There is no cross on top of the sphere.
(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)
A search on X (formerly Twitter) showed us more posts showing the object in the background, which also did not show any cross on it.
Here, we came across the original, uncropped photo, shared by user 'YashTDP'.
It did not show a cross on the object.
One cannot see a cross on the original photo.
(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)
We also saw a post by the account of the Andhra Pradesh government's fact-checking unit, debunking the claim.
Conclusion: An edited photo showing BR Naidu with a cross in the background is being shared on social media.
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