Viral picture: Woman seated in modest kitchen is not Droupadi Murmu
India welcomed its first tribal President Droupadi Murmu on July 25. Soon after, a picture of a woman seated in a kitchen in front of a gas stove began circulating on social media claiming to show Murmu’s humble start and lifestyle.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 28 July 2022 2:45 AM GMT
HYDERABAD: India welcomed its first tribal President Droupadi Murmu on July 25. Soon after, a picture of a woman seated in a kitchen in front of a gas stove began circulating on social media claiming to show Murmu's humble start and lifestyle.
A Facebook user shared the picture and claimed that the woman in the picture is Murmu. The user shared the picture with the caption, "This is the one who lived very simply. Modi has made her the President...!!! Sri Droupadi Murmu."
Shortly, many other users began sharing the screenshot of the above post on the social platform.
FACT CHECK:
Firstly, NewsMeter compared pictures of the woman in the viral image and President Murmu. It was easy to detect that the woman in the viral image is not Murmu.
Next, NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found the same picture carried in a tweet by journalist Sheela Bhatt. The tweet shows pictures of Murmu's birthplace, mud house, and kitchen. Nowhere in the tweet was it mentioned that the woman is Draupadi Murmu. It only mentions Draupadi Murmu's kitchen.
Using this as a hint, we searched for videos of Murmu's house on YouTube and found a video by Sakshi TV dated 21 July 2022. It shows a home tour of Murmu's house. Here, one can understand that the woman in the viral picture is Draupadi Murmu's niece. The niece gives a tour of the house to the reporter and is photographed in the kitchen.
It is clear that the claim is misleading as the woman is not Draupadi Draupadi, but her niece.
