Did FM Nirmala Sitharaman Say There Is No Poverty in the Country? No!

There is no evidence to support the claim that Sitharaman indeed made such a statement.

Fact-Check | There is no evidence to support that Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made such a statement.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A post is doing the rounds on social media platforms with a claim that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that there is no poverty in the country and that people are pretending to be poor.

What did the post say?: It carried text in Hindi that loosely translated to, "There are no poor people in our country, people pretend to be poor. People are buying a lot of gold and silver. - Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister."

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(More archives of similar such claims could be accessed here, here, and here.)

What is the truth?: There is no evidence to support the claim that the Finance Minister indeed made such a statement. The graphic containing a watermark of 'Molitics' has actually been altered.

How did we find that out?: On noticing the watermark of 'Molitics', we searched for it on Google and found an Instagram handle with the same name.

• We found a graphic posted on 30 January that carried the same photo of Sitharaman and looked similar to the viral post.

• The post's caption, when loosely translated to English, said, "Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Economic Survey in Parliament. According to the survey, 562 million people over the age of 15 are employed in India. GDP growth is projected to be in the range of 6.5% to 7%. It has been suggested that junk food advertisements should be banned from 6 am to 11 pm."

No news reports: Team WebQoof did not find any credible news reports that talked about Sitharaman dismissing the existence of poverty in the country.

• Further, we checked the Finance Minister's recent annual budget speech and did not find any such statement in it.

• It was shared on the official YouTube channel of DD News on 1 February with a caption that said, "Budget Session Live: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Presents Union Budget 2026 in the Lok Sabha."

• You can find a transcript of the speech here.

Conclusion: It is clear that the viral graphic has been altered to make the misleading claim.

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