A post is going viral on social media (here, here, and here) featuring a screenshot allegedly from Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s official Facebook account. The caption of the post appears to read, “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday. Multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Sarojadevi’s earthly body and paid his last respects.” The grammatical errors in the message have led to widespread criticism online, with users claiming that the Chief Minister’s office needs English teachers. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: In a social media post, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah’s office made a grammatically incorrect statement announcing his death.
Fact: The viral screenshot was generated using Facebook’s auto-translation feature, which wrongly translated the original Kannada text. The original post in Kannada on Siddaramaiah’s official page correctly stated that he paid respects to actress B. Sarojadevi, who passed away on 14 July 2025. It did not announce his death, nor did it contain any grammatical errors. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A Google Lens search of the viral post’s screenshot led us to the original post (archived) on the official Facebook page of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, dated 15 July 2025, which features the same photos as seen in the viral post. The English translation of the caption (from google) reads: “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah paid his last respects to the mortal remains of multilingual star and veteran actress B. Sarojadevi, who passed away yesterday.” We also found a post on the official X handle of the Karnataka CM with a similar description and the same photos.
We found that the original post on Facebook was written in Kannada and contained no grammatical errors. It did not mention the death of CM Siddaramaiah. However, when translated using Facebook’s built-in translation feature, the English version incorrectly read: “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Sarojadevi’s earthly body and paid his last respects.” This confirms that the viral screenshot was taken after using the auto-translate option.
According to reports (here, here), Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah paid his last respects to veteran multilingual actress B. Sarojadevi, who passed away on 14 July 2025. The CM visited her residence in Bengaluru, where her mortal remains were kept for public homage. He also offered condolences to her family members. Several political leaders, film industry personalities, and fans gathered to bid farewell to the actress, who left a lasting legacy in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi cinema.
To sum up, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah’s office didn’t announce his death; the viral screenshot is a result of an incorrect Facebook auto-translation of a Kannada post.
