Fact-check: Was the nurse present during Rahul Gandhi's birth 13 years old? - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
11th June 2019 / 5:04 pm / Last updated: 11th June 2019
A claim by a Twitter handle @MuralikrishnaE1 has garnered massive traction on social media. His tweet has hypothesized that Rajamma Vavathil, the nurse who was present during Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s birth, was only 13 years old at the time. According to his claim, the present age of Rajamma’s is 62 while Rahul is 49. The user took a jibe at Gandhi by tweeting, “Yaha bhi Saala Scam (There is a scam here as well -translated)”. The handle quote-tweeted a tweet by ANI which reported Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with Rajamma Vavathil during a 3-day visit to his new constituency Wayanad.
Muralikrishna is followed on Twitter by the office of Piyush Goyal. At the time of writing this article, this tweet has been liked more than 12,100 times and retweeted close to 6,700 times.
Rajamma is 62
Rahul is 49
So when he was born, the nurse was 13 year old
Yaha bhi saala scam….🤔 https://t.co/Aht03Br951
— Muralikrishna🇮🇳 (@MuralikrishnaE1) June 9, 2019
A screenshot of the same tweet was also shared by many other individual users on Facebook.
Alt News found that the claim about Rajamma’s age is untrue, according to several media reports. As per a report published by India Today, Rajamma is a “72-year-old” retired nurse. The Hindu, The Quint, Republic TV and The Asian Age similarly reported her age as 72.
Furthermore, a detailed report published by The Outlook stated that Rajamma Vavathil, who was then a nurse serving at the Holy Family Hospital, was 23 years old at the time of Rahul Gandhi’s birth in 1970.
Alt News contacted Rajamma Vavathil to confirm her age during the time when Rahul Gandhi was born. She said, “I was 23 when Rahul Gandhi was born. I am a 72-year-old lady now. It has been 48 years since he was born. The relationship between me and Rahul Gandhi is that he was born in front of me and I call him beta [son]. My date of birth is June 1, 1947. He was born on June 19, 1970. You calculate. I don’t want to be insulted like this. I am not into politics.” Thus, the claim that Rajamma was only 13 years old when Rahul Gandhi was born is factually incorrect.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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