Author Saroo Brierley featured in BJP poster as Delhi EWS flat scheme beneficiary

Hyderabad: On 2 November, several BJP leaders and Twitter handles associated with the BJP shared a poster announcing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under the EWS flat scheme in Delhi, will inaugurate the newly-constructed 3,024 flats and hand over the keys to the beneficiaries. The poster also features a photo of the beneficiaries.

Union Home minister Amit Shah shared the poster and wrote, "The Modi government doesn't only make promises, but also fulfils them. Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hand over the key to happiness to the slum dwellers of Delhi. A total of 3,024 EWS flats will be provided to the people of Delhi by PM Modi." (Translated)

Mr. Shah has since then deleted the tweet. Click here to see the archived post.

Delhi BJP's official Twitter handle, former Union education minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, BJP Rajasthan vice-president Chandrakanta Meghwal, and Member of Parliament Hardwar Dubey have also shared the poster.

In this article, we are fact-checking the photo of the beneficiaries shown on the poster.

Fact Check

NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found the same photo used in a Daily Mail article written by Saroo Brierley in 2017. The report is about how Saroo Brierley, who was adopted from a Calcutta orphanage by an Australian couple, used Google Earth to track down his family. The photo is captioned, "Unbroken bond: Saroo with his mother Fatima Munshi and his Indian family."

In the article, Brierley narrates his story of being adopted by an Australian couple from a Kolkata orphanage at the age of 5, growing up in Tasmania, and decades later, tracking down his family through Google Earth in India. It also says the Oscar-nominated movie 'Lion', starring actors Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel, was based on Saroo's memoir 'A Long Way Home.'

The photo was also used in articles published by Mint and Hindustan Times in 2013. The articles reported the incredible journey of Saroo Brierley.

It is evident that the photo shared by the BJP leaders is of Saroo Brierley with his estranged family in India. Hence, the photo used in BJP's poster is misleading.

According to information on Penguin's website, the publisher of Saroo's books, "Saroo Brierley was born in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India. In 1986, when he was aged only five, he lost all contact with his family when he became lost and was separated from his older brother at a train station in India. He grew up with his new parents in Hobart, Tasmania for the next 25 years. Saroo's virtual odyssey of his homeland and search for his home town and his mother made headlines across the world in 2012."