Morphed: Book titled 'How to convert India into Christian nation' behind Sonia Gandhi - Alt News
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1st June 2021 / 10:24 am / Last updated: 12th September 2022
An image of Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi is being shared on social media which shows that the bookshelf behind her apparently has the ‘Holy Bible’, a statue of Jesus and a book titled ‘How to Convert India into Christian Nation’.
Alt News has received requests on its Helpline Number +91 76000 11160 for checking the authenticity of the image. The text accompanying the picture says “Zoom and see right side. One book titled “How to Convert India into Christian Nation”. Any further proof required?”
Same image had gone viral in 2021
Twitter user @noconversion had first tweeted the image on May 31, 2021, gaining over 700 retweets. Another user, @asgarhid, drew more than 400 retweets for the picture.
BJP Tamil Nadu Secretary Sumathi Venkatesh and BJP supporter Renuka Jain had also shared the image. They later took down their tweets. Journalist and BJP support Meena Das Narayan tweeted the image as well.
The image was circulating on Facebook.
Many Facebook groups such as ‘Sudarshan News‘ with one lakh followers and ‘PMO India New Delhi*‘ with three lakh followers further promoted the image.
If one looks very carefully, the image carries a watermark of the Twitter handle @noconversion on the left, which hints that this handle had created the image.
A reverse image search led Alt News to a video posted by Congress in October 2020 where Gandhi questioned the Centre on the farmers’ agitation and the hike in fuel prices. The video was also tweeted by Rahul Gandhi. The viral image is a screengrab taken by PTI. Many videos of Sonia Gandhi in front of that bookshelf have been tweeted by Congress.
‘बदलाव की बयार है।’
कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष श्रीमती सोनिया गांधी जी का बिहार की जनता के नाम संदेश आपसे साझा कर रहा हूँ।
नए बिहार के लिए एकजुट होकर महागठबंधन को जीताने का समय है। pic.twitter.com/ptmzjEjQuh
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 27, 2020
Alt News compared a screenshot from the video with the viral image. We noticed that the books ‘How to Convert India into Christian Nation’ and the ‘Holy Bible’ and the statue of Jesus are not present on the bookshelf in the video. Thus, the viral image is morphed.
🙏 Blessed to have worked as a fact-checking journalist from November 2019 to February 2023.
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