Fact Check: PM Modi visits Sonia Gandhi in hospital? No, AI-generated image goes viral
An image circulating on social media claims to show PM Modi visiting Sonia Gandhi in the hospital.
By - Rahul Adhikari
Claim:The image shows PM Modi visiting Sonia Gandhi in the hospital during her recent brief hospitalisation.
Fact:False. The image is AI-generated.
Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was admitted to a hospital with a fever on March 24 and was discharged on March 31.
After Gandhi was hospitalised, an image circulated on social media claiming to show Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the hospital to meet her. The image features Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, two bodyguards and medical staff alongside PM Modi and Sonia Gandhi.
In the viral image, PM Modi and Sonia Gandhi are seen greeting each other with folded hands. Gandhi is lying on a hospital bed and others are standing nearby.
The image was widely circulated on Facebook. One user on the platform shared the image and wrote, “PM Modi arrives at the hospital to meet Sonia Gandhi. This is what they call a difference of opinion but not a difference of heart.” (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)
But did PM Modi actually visit Sonia Gandhi at the hospital?
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The viral image is AI-generated and is being passed off as PM Modi visiting Sonia Gandhi in the hospital.
What does the image reveal?
We reviewed the viral image and found several anomalies of generative AI. The folded hands of PM Modi and Gandhi look slightly inconsistent in finger length and positioning. The faces of every person in the image look overly smooth and somewhat uniform and lacking the natural skin texture.
We also noticed that the bodyguard on the far left has his left hand appearing to melt into his trousers and the fingers are poorly defined or missing.
Result of AI detection tools
For further analysis, we uploaded the image to the AI content detection tool Hive Moderation. The tool indicated a 99.9 per cent probability that the image was generated using AI or is deepfake content. The tool also noted that it is 99.8 per cent likely that it was created using Google Gemini.
We asked Google Gemini to run DeepMind’s SynthID Detector on the image and detect if it was created using Google AI. The detector identifies digital watermarks embedded directly in images generated by Google AI. Gemini confirmed that this image was indeed created using Google AI.
Did PM Modi meet Sonia?
There are no credible reports that confirm that PM Modi visited Sonia Gandhi in the hospital.
