A screenshot of a tweet purportedly belonging to former Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh has gone viral on social media claiming that Singh, in a tweet, mocked the central government and Prime Minister Modi over the Population Control Bill 2021.
The tweet in Hindi read, “2 से अधिक संतान हुए तो नही मिलेगी सरकारी सुविधाएं, यह ऐलान खुद अपने माता-पिता की 7वीं संतान कर रही है.”
(Translation: If you have more than two kids then you will not be entitled to any benefits provided by the government, this announcement is being done by the 7th child of his parents.)
The link to the post can be seen here. Many similar posts can be seen here, here, and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile did a fact check and found the claim to be fake.
On closely observing the viral screenshot, we noticed that there is no verified symbol and the tweet has been posted by a Twitter handle by the name ‘@Dr_manmohan_1‘.
We searched the user handle @Dr_manmohan_1 on Twitter and found that the bio of the Twitter handle mentions that it is a parody account of Dr Manmohan Singh. Also, the account was made in June 2021 and has around 13,800 followers.
We also observed that most of the tweets done from this account are a jibe at the Central government or are viral memes.
Also, on June 19, 2020, Saral Patel, National Convener of INC had clarified that Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are not on Twitter.
His tweet read, “Tired of people asking, If this account is authentic or not. This is not the first time and won’t be the last, so making it clear for once and all. If Sonia Ji or MMS Ji decides to come on Twitter, They will have a VERIFED twitter account. So please don’t follow fake accounts.”
Tired of people asking, If this, account is authentic or not. This is not the first time and won’t be the last, so making it clear for once and all.
If Sonia Ji or MMS Ji decides to come on Twitter, They will have a VERIFED twitter account.
So please don’t follow fake accounts. https://t.co/O7vwVrYaxX
— Saral Patel (@SaralPatel) June 19, 2020
We also found no media report saying that Dr. Manmohan Singh has made any such statement. Hence, we can confirm that the viral post is misleading and false.
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