Morphed Photo Of Sonia Gandhi With Book On 'Christian Conversion' Viral

A picture of Sonia Gandhi with a book named "How to Convert India into a Christian nation" on a bookshelf behind her went viral on social media. The image of the book along with the Holy Bible and Jesus statue got circulated with captions like "Who reads all these books?" from the Twitter handle @noconversion.

The photo tweeted by No Conversion was retweeted by over 1,000 people and later got deleted by the account with no explanation. The tweet can be viewed here. The handle @noconversion has over two lakh followers, and the tweets mainly focus on anti-christian content.

The picture has been circulated on various social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Francois Gautier, another user of Twitter who has over 63,000 followers has posted the edited image by zooming in on the book title and the statue.

If we notice the picture closely, a watermark of the Twitter handle @noconversion can be seen on the book. It seems that the No Conversion Twitter handle can be the origin of the photo.

Fact Check

In a reverse image search, we found that the photo is a screenshot from a video where Sonia Gandhi addressed the people of Bihar on the State's economy and unemployment before the Bihar legislative assembly elections held in October-November, 2020. The video was initially shared by Rahul Gandhi in October 2020.

Later, Hindustan Times, Mint, and NDTV used the same photo in their reports.

In the video, Sonia Gandhi was seen in the same attire with the exact bookshelf but there was no sign of the statue of Jesus nor the book titled "How to convert India into a Christian nation." Space where the statue and the Holy Bible are seen in the viral photo is empty in the original.

Conclusion

After the morphed picture went viral, the Congress's official YouTube Channel shared the video as proof that the claimed picture is a screenshot and the name of the book has been altered, the Holy Bible and the statue of Jesus Christ have been added to the picture.

It is cleared that the picture was edited and made viral to mislead people against Sonia Gandhi indicating she reads books on conversion.

An FIR is to be lodged by the National President of Indian Youth Congress, Srinivas BV, who tweeted, "We've decided to file an FIR against all those handles sharing this morphed image. Dirty tricks of Amit Malware & company won't be tolerated further."

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