Fact Check: Ganesha sculpture made of oranges is from France not Holland

People are sharing the video with the caption, "Holland is said to be the capital of orange in the world. The locals use the best part of their harvest to celebrate the festival of Vinayaka Chaturthi."

The link to the post can be viewed here.

NewsMeter found that Telugu news channel Sakshi TV had uploaded the same video on its YouTube channel on 14 September 2021 with the title "Holland Celebrates Ganesh Utsav with Orange Ganpati". See below.

Fact Check

The claim is false.

NewsMeter ran a keyword search and found the same idol in a 2018 photo feature published by the UK-based news outlet The Telegraph. The report from 16 February 2018 had published a photo of a similar idol and claimed that it was from France. It had credited the photo to news agency Reuters.

"A sculpture made with lemons and oranges which depicts elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha is seen during the 85th Lemon festival around the theme 'Bollywood' in Menton, France," read the caption by The Telegraph.

We looked for the photo on the Reuters site and found the picture credited to Jean-Pierre Amet.

A search for Fete Du Citron led to a story published by Eurotunnel which describes it as, "The Fête du Citron (also known as the Carnival of Menton) is an annual celebration of the leaving of winter and the coming of spring, where the entire town of Menton becomes coloured with locally grown oranges and lemons. The fruits are collected in abundance and used to make impressive structures and displays that are paraded through the town for a period of two weeks."

It further added that every year the festival has a different theme around which everything is centered with some themes in the past being 'Bollywood' and 'Broadway'. More images of the Bollywood-themed 2018 Lemon festival, including the orange Ganesha, can be seen on the site of Fete du Citron.

Hence, the claim that the Ganesha made of oranges is from Holland is false.