A social media post shares a photo of Aruna Jain, a contestant in the Season-7 of MasterChef India. The post Description claims that Aruna rejected a reward of 25 lakh rupees when she was asked to cook an egg-based dish. The post claims she withdrew from the 25 Lakh Prize race by refusing to cook eggs as a Jain. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Aruna Jain, a MasterChef India contestant, refused to cook an egg-based dish and withdrew from the 25 Lakh Price race.
Fact: This incident happened in Season 7, Episode 24 of MasterChef India. Contestants were asked to cook an Egg-based dish. Aruna Vijay, who belongs to the Jain community, refused to cook an Egg-based dish owing to her faith-based principles and gave away her Immunity pin, which saves a contestant from elimination. Giving up an immunity pin does not mean a contestant has withdrawn from the competition. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
A thorough search on the Internet regarding this incident led us to an article published by Latestly where it was reported that MasterChef India contestant Aruna Vijay gave up her immunity pin, and she tweeted about it. The same incident was also mentioned in an article published by the Times of India about the controversies generated by the last season of MasterChef India.
After looking through the official YouTube channel (SET India) of Sony Entertainment TV, which aired this show, we found that this incident took place in Episode 24 (watch it here). When contestants were asked to prepare an egg based dish, Aruna Vijay refused to cook something she doesn’t use (Egg) and gave away her immunity pin. The immunity pin saves a contestant from elimination. About this incident, Aruna Vijay expressed herself through a now-deleted tweet in which she said, ‘I gave up the immunity pin for an egg, PROUD JAIN….‘
However, giving away an immunity pin does not mean that a contestant has rejected the prize money or has withdrawn from the competition; it means they have just lost the immunity against elimination in future episodes. Furthermore, Aruna Vijay continued her journey as a contestant until the final four, when she was eliminated. Here, you can see the episode in which she was eliminated. Here, you can watch the finale of this season in which Nayanjyothi Saikia won the contest.
To sum up, Aruna Vijay gave up her immunity pin but did not withdraw herself from the competition; in fact, she continued and even reached the final four.
