Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the 25th Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of State in Tianjin, China, from 31 August to 01 September 2025. On the sidelines of this summit, Prime Minister Modi met with the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping. In this context, a video (here, here & here) of former Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meeting a Chinese delegation is being widely circulated on social media. The claim accompanying the video suggests that the incident occurred during Manmohan Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister and that Sonia Gandhi took the lead in welcoming the guests, thereby sidelining him. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Sonia Gandhi sidelined then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while welcoming a Chinese delegation during his tenure as PM.
Fact: The video is from 16 June 2015, after Manmohan Singh had completed his tenure as Prime Minister (2004–2014). It depicts Sonia Gandhi, then serving as Congress President, meeting a Chinese delegation led by Zhang Dejiang. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led us to the original footage and photographs uploaded on the official social media handles (here, here & here) of the Indian National Congress on 16 June 2015. According to these sources, the viral video shows a meeting between then Congress President Sonia Gandhi and a Chinese delegation. It is important to note that Manmohan Singh was no longer the Prime Minister of India at the time. He had served as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2014.
Media reports (here, here & here) from that period state that Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, met Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh at her residence on 16 June 2015. At that time, Sonia Gandhi was serving as the President of the Congress Party. Reports also mentioned that prior to this meeting, Zhang Dejiang had met with then-President of India Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Chinese Embassy in India also issued a press release regarding Zhang Dejiang’s visit in June 2015.
Previously, we have also debunked (here & here) multiple claims alleging that Sonia Gandhi sidelined Manmohan Singh during meetings held when he was the Prime Minister of India.
To sum it up, the viral video does not show Sonia Gandhi sidelining Manmohan Singh during his tenure as Prime Minister. The footage is from June 2015, a year after Manmohan Singh had demitted office.
