An old image showing former President Ram Nath Kovind and President Droupadi Murmu performing a prayer inside a temple is going viral on social media with a claim that the image is recent.
The claim states that the duo took part in a Vedic ritual ahead of the official swearing-in ceremony of Murmu for the presidential post.
But this picture is from February 2020, when then President Kovind had visited Baba Baidyanath Dham Temple in Deoghar, Jharkhand and Murmu, who was serving as Governor of Jharkhand, accompanied him.
CLAIM
The claim states that Kovind and Murmu performed a Vedic ritual at a temple before Kovind handed over the presidency to her.
An archive can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We conducted a reverse image search on Google Images and came across an article published by Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar on 29 February 2020.
The article carried the same viral image and mentioned Kovind visited Baba Baidyanath Dham Temple in Deoghar along with Murmu, who was serving as Jharkhand's governor.
Kovind went to the temple while he was on a two-day visit to Jharkhand.
The image can be seen in 2020's article.
(Source: Prabhat Khabar/screenshot)
We also found a tweet from the official Twitter handle of 'President of India' from the same date, where Kovind could be seen in the temple premise.
A short clip of Kovind and Murmu performing a ritual was also uploaded by the district commissioner of Deoghar.
Clearly, an old image from 2020 showing Kovind and Murmu performing a ritual is being shared as a recent one.
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