Fact-Check: That's a Tamil Poet's Kin, Not Nirmala Sitharaman's Father

The person in the video was KV Krishnan, the grandnephew of Tamil poet Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi.

Fact-Check: The person in the video was the grandnephew of Tamil poet Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meeting an elderly man is going viral on the internet.

The claim: Those sharing the video have claimed that the person in the video was Sitharaman's father and she was meeting him at her ancestral home.

• "Simplicity at Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's father's house. A father accords a royal traditional welcome to his daughter which she politely sidesteps and introduces her colleagues to her father," read the caption.

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

(Archives of more such posts can be found here and here.)

The truth: The video was from Sitharaman's visit to Varanasi on 3-4 December 2022 as part of the ‘Kashi Tamil Sangamam'. The elderly person was KV Krishnan, the grandnephew of Tamil poet Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi.

How did we find that out:

• We conducted a reverse image search on one of the frames from the viral video and found the same video on Sitharaman's office's Twitter handle posted on 3 December 2022.

• The caption of the tweet said that Sitharaman visited Siva Madam in Varanasi and interacted with the family members of Mahakavi Bharathiyar, including his 96-year-old great nephew Shri KV Krishnan.

• Taking a cue from that, we conducted a keyword search and found a report on Press Information Bureau's website from 2 December. This mentioned that the finance minister visited key Tamil influence places in Varanasi, including Siva Madam on 3 December.

• We also saw reports and tweets that showed other Union Ministers – Dharmendra Pradhan and S Jaishankar – meeting Krishnan in Varanasi.

Who is Sitharaman's father: According to her profile in the Department of Financial Services' website, her father's name is Narayanan Sitharaman.

• However, we were unable to find any photographs of him nor could we find any recent news reports of them meeting.

Conclusion: A video of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meeting the grandnephew of a Tamil Poet was shared with a false claim.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)