A photo is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of Union Minister Smriti Irani drinking alcohol and preparing counter tweets to Rahul Gandhi. This photo shows Smriti Irani sitting in a garden with a laptop and a glass of alcohol beside her. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of Union Minister Smriti Irani drinking alcohol and preparing counter tweets to Rahul Gandhi.
Fact: The photo shared in the post is a morphed one. The original image shows Smriti Irani interacting with her co-workers through a video conference. Also, the glass placed beside Smriti Irani was filled with water, not alcohol. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched for this image on Union Minister Smriti Irani’s official social media handles, we found this image to be published on Smriti Irani’s Instagram handle on 09 December 2020. Smriti Irani shared this image with a caption, ‘Pandemic mornings’. But the original image did not show Smriti Irani watching Rahul Gandhi on her laptop. In the original photo, Smriti Irani was seen interacting in a video meeting on her laptop.
Also, the glass placed beside Smriti Irani in the photo was filled with water, not alcohol.
Sharing the original photo, several news websites published articles in December 2020. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, a morphed photo is falsely shared as the visuals of Smriti Irani watching Rahul Gandhi’s speeches to prepare counter tweets.
