Did Senior Congress Leader Motilal Vohra Took Blessings from Rahul Gandhi?

After speculations of Congress party’s senior leader Motilal Vohra soon to be appointed as Congress interim chief following Rahul Gandhi’s resignation, an old picture resurfaced the internet. In the picture, it is seen Vohra(90) bending in an attempt to touch Rahul Gandhi’s feet. This picture was shared by many social media users, even the influential ones like Sunil Jain who is the managing director of the Financial Express.

He later deleted the tweet claiming there was some confusion.

some confusion over the picture, so am deleting the tweet. https://t.co/pR7FmJkK1C

— Sunil Jain (@thesuniljain) July 4, 2019

The picture was also tweeted by Shobhaa De under the caption, “This is such a sad picture. It says everything about what’s so horribly wrong with the Congress party.”

THE TRUTH

This image gained recognition back in December 2018, when people claimed that the gentleman bending over Gandhi’s feet was not Motilal Vohra, but TS Singh Deo. This picture was taken at the oath ceremony, where Deo took oath as the cabinet minister in the newly formed Congress government in Chattisgarh. But the speculation was still fixed on a senior party member touching Gandhi’s foot which questioned Congress’s morality and mindset. Congress received loads of backlash for this viral picture.

But it turns out that not only the man isn’t Vohra, but also there was no action of feet touching going on there.

This picture was fact-checked by many websites like India Today and others

There was no certainty whether TS Deo was, in fact, touching Rahul Gandhi’s feet. Speaking to India Today regarding this incident, TS Singh Deo denied such claims. Also, a senior Congress leader RPN Singh stated that Deo tried to touch Rahul’s feet at the entrance but was stopped by the Congress chief.

But an interesting catch to the story is that a Raipur based senior journalist was present in the oath-taking ceremony when this picture was snapped. As confirmed to the Quint, the journalist stated that Singh Deo had not bent down to touch Rahul Gandhi’s feet but to simply pick a piece of thread that had fallen out of a bouquet that can be seen in former prime minister Manmohan Singh hands.

More Such Fakes

The fake picture was also shared by actress Koena Mitra but it was later deleted.