Viral Claim About Gandhi Family Missing Former PM Singh’s Last Rites is False

Several live streams and photos from former PM Dr Manmohan Singh's last rites show all members of the Gandhi family.

Several publicly available visuals show the whole Gandhi family at late PM Manmohan Singh's funeral.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Sharing posts about former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s demise, social media users have claimed that no member of the Gandhi family was present during the late leader’s last rites, which were held in Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat on 28 December 2024.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

(Archives of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here and here.)

But…?: The claim is false. Several livestreams of the event show Sonia, Priyanka, and Rahul Gandhi present at the former prime minister’s funeral.

• Rahul Gandhi also shared visuals of him at Singh’s last rites on his X account.

How did we find out the truth?: We ran a keyword search for videos of the late prime minister’s funeral procession.

• This led us to several live streams on YouTube, which were shared by news organisations such as India Today and NDTV.

• Rahul Gandhi was seen riding alongside people in the back of a truck on route to Nigambodh Ghat, accompanying the hearse in India Today’s live stream.

The video shows Gandhi riding with the hearse.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

We also spotted him and Congress leaders Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi, along with party president Mallikarjun Kharge about two-and-a-half hours into India Today’s live stream.

The whole family was present at Singh’s funeral.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

In NDTV’s video of the event, we saw Rahul Gandhi laying a wreath on Singh’s mortal remains and later saw him during the funeral rites with a cloth tied around his forehead.

Gandhi paid his respects to Dr Singh.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

He was present during the last rites for the former prime minister.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

Moreover, Rahul Gandhi shared visuals of him at the funeral in a post on his X account.

Gandhi shared a post honouring Singh.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

He also shared a live stream of the rites and procession on his Facebook page.

The Congress party, too, shared a similar post, which showed Rahul Gandhi in the back of an open truck.

One can see visuals similar to India Today’s livestream in this post.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

International media, too, covered the event. The Guardian’s video report shows Rahul Gandhi laying a wreath. 

We saw similar visuals in The Guardian’s report.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

Conclusion: Social media users have shared posts which falsely claim that the Gandhi family was not present during the last rites of the late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

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