Did Rahul Gandhi Call Sushant Singh a Cricketer? No, Tweet is Fake

The altered image of Gandhi’s tweet is also circulating on WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An altered tweet of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi paying tribute to actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who died by suicide on Sunday, 14 June, is being circulated on social media with an insinuation that Gandhi called Rajput “a cricketer” and didn't know who he was tweeting for.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

CLAIM

Karuna Gopal, who introduced herself as the “Member Sub Committee BJP National Manifesto” in her Twitter bio, also shared the tweet taking a dig at Gandhi. The tweet has now been taken down.

An archived version can be found here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The altered image of Gandhi’s tweet is also circulating on WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook.

An archived version of the post can be found here.(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

An archived version of the tweet can be found here.(Source: Twitter)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We looked up Rahul Gandhi’s tweet about Rajput’s death on his Twitter account and came across the tweet which was posted at the same time as that of viral tweet.

Tweet by Rahul Gandhi (left); morphed tweet of Rahul Gandhi (right).(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

In his tweet Gandhi wrote, “I am sorry to hear about the passing of Sushant Singh Rajput. A young & talented actor, gone too soon. My condolences to his family, friends & fans across the world.” He had referred to Rajput as an actor and not a cricketer as mentioned in the viral tweet.

While it can be argued that Gandhi could have deleted the tweet, in the viral tweet the word ‘Cricketer’ was superimposed.

On looking at the tweet carefully, one can notice the difference in the font and the colour of the alphabets.

The letter ‘C’ has been highlighted to show the difference in font. (Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

Clearly, an altered tweet is being circulated to mock Rahul Gandhi to claim that he made an error even while paying tribute to the late actor.

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