A photo (here, here and here) currently circulating on social media platforms purports to show Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi being hugged by Smriti Irani. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The photo shows Smriti Irani hugging PM Narendra Modi.
Fact: The viral photo has been digitally altered. In the original photo, Smriti Irani is seen with her daughter, not PM Modi. Therefore, the claim made about this post is False.
To verify the validity of the viral photo, we performed a reverse image search. This led us to the original photo posted (archived post) by Smriti Irani on her Instagram account in 2017.
In the original photo, Smriti Irani is seen sharing a warm moment with her daughter. The caption accompanying the post reads, ‘#when #yourbabygirl overshoots #you in height and #you can’t help but #smile 😍😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘’.
This clearly indicates that the viral photo of PM Modi and Smriti Irani is a product of digital manipulation.
Additionally, we found that this moped picture has been doing the rounds on the internet for a very long time, and ‘Free Press Journal’ tweeted (archived post) in 2021 that a person Gordhan Nagar, was booked by the police under the IT Act, for posting this morphed picture of Modi and Irani.
To sum up, the viral photo claiming to show PM Modi and Smriti Irani in an embrace is a digitally altered version of an original photo of Irani and her daughter.
