Sonia Gandhi is not the world’s 4th richest lady and India was termed as the 4th superpower in the category of space
Update (17 June 2022)
Another claim stating that Sonia Gandhi is richer than Queen of England is also doing rounds on social media. The claim further accounted Sonia Gandhi’s assets to be worth Rs. 12,000 crores and ranked her 12th in the list.
However, we could not find any such survey report with the name (Servants, learnt from google translate) mentioned in the viral post. Further there are no credible reports saying Sonia Gandhi is richer than the queen of England. In fact she did not feature in any list of richest persons reported by reputed agencies (here & here).
As mentioned below, a similar claim went viral previously after a few news agencies published articles with similar claims. However, few of these agencies later on took down these claims related to Sonia Gandhi, as their sources for the claim were called into question.
As far as the claim of her not owning a house is concerned, according to the latest (2019) election affidavit , Sonia Gandhi declared assets worth Rs. 11.82 crores. Further, she does not own a house in India, however, she holds a share in ancestral property in Italy.
First Published (April 2019)
A post is being shared on Facebook by many users claiming that while Sonia gained (by becoming the 4th richest lady in the world) under the Congress rule, India gained (by becoming the 4th superpower in the world) under the Modi rule. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: Sonia became the world’s fourth richest lady under the Congress rule whereas India became the world’s 4th superpower under the Modi rule
Fact: Sonia with the declared assets of approximately Rs. 12 crores (in 2019) is not even Top 25 Richest Women in the World, released by Forbes. Also, there is no Super Power list released by any credible organization. India became the 4th superpower, only in the category of space, after successfully conducting Mission Shakti. Business Insider released a list of Powerful nations in which India stands at 15th position. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The declared assets of Sonia Gandhi can be found through her 2019 election affidavit. In 2014, she had declared assets worth of approximately 9 crores (which is around 1.5 million dollars). In 2019, she declared assets worth around Rs. 12 crores. Sonia Gandhi did not even find a place in the 2014’s Top 25 Richest Women in the World. The 25th Richest Woman on that list has a net worth around 5.2 billion dollars, which is much higher compared to Sonia Gandhi’s assets. So, the claim about Sonia Gandhi being the 4th richest in the world is FALSE.
Some organizations like Business Insider and Huffing Post has placed Sonia Gandhi in top positions on their lists (4th position on the Business Insider list) but they have been contradicted. AltNews, in an article, has analyzed the Business Insider list and concluded that the data on Sonia’s assets have been taken from dubious sources whereas Huffing Post has removed Sonia Gandhi from its list after the backlash and clarified that they could not verify the amount.
Coming to the Superpower list, FACTLY did not find any superpower list, but India was termed as the fourth space superpower, after the successful destruction of the satellite under Mission Shakti. When searched for a superpower ranking list, only a list of powerful nations published by Business Insider was found. Also, in that article, India was placed at the 15th position, not at the 4th position.
Finally, Sonia Gandhi is not the world’s 4th richest lady and India was termed as the 4th superpower only in the category of space.