Fact Check: Viral video of Nirmala Sitaraman makes a false claim that the old person is her father
A video of Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman visiting a home and interacting with an old person is being shared virally on all platforms of social media, including YouTube and WhatsApp.
A video of Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman visiting a home and interacting with an old person is being shared virally on all platforms of social media, including YouTube and WhatsApp.
The video is shared with a claim that the person seen in the video is Nirmala Sitaraman’s father who is living in a simple house. The finance minister is seen introducing her teammates to the elderly person, who then greets them all.
The claim shared with the video goes as “Indian finance minister meeting her father in his house. Look at the house condition. She came to his father's town for an official work, On the way, she visited her father at the home, she is introducing his team members to him and her father also introducing his son, daughter in law & grandsons to them”
Fact check:
The claim is false. The person seen in the video is not Nirmala Sitaraman’s father.
When the key frames extracted from the video are searched using Google reverse image search, we found a Reddit post stating that the elderly person seen in the video is the 96-year-old nephew of Tamil revolutionary poet Subramaniya Bharatiyar.
We also found an Instagram post by Nirmala Sitaraman herself confirming that he is Shri KV Krishnan, the great-nephew of Mahakavi Bharatiyar. She also stated that she interacted with other family members of Mahakavi Bharatiyar in her post.
The post goes “Visited Siva Madam in Varanasi yesterday and interacted with the family members of Mahakavi Bharathiyar, including his 96-year-old great nephew Shri K. V. Krishnan. #KashiTamilSangamam”
The photographs of her visit and interaction with family members of Mahakavi Bharatiyar were also shared on the official Twitter handle -NSitaramanOffice.
The tweet which was published on December 3, 2022 states Smt @nsitharaman visits Siva Madam in Varanasi and interacts with the family members of Mahakavi Bharathiyar, including his 96-year-old great nephew Shri K. V. Krishnan. #KashiTamilSangamam
The same video was shared by them on the Twitter thread, with the caption “Siva Madam is the place where Mahakavi Bharathiyar stayed during his visit to Varanasi in the 1900s. #KashiTamilSangamam”
Hence, the elderly person seen in the video is not Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman’s father. He is the great-nephew of Tamil revolutionary poet Subramanya Bharatiyar.