Fact Check: Claim That Sonia Gandhi Disrespected Dr Manmohan Singh Before Chinese Delegation Is Fake, He Wasn’t PM Then

Fact Check: A video is going viral on social media showing Sonia Gandhi greeting a Chinese delegation while Dr Manmohan Singh walks behind her. Some people are sharing it with the claim that Sonia sidelined Dr Singh as if she were superior to the Prime Minister.

Vishvas News found this claim to be misleading in its investigation. Actually, this video dates back to 2015 when he was not the Prime Minister.

What is in the viral post?

Facebook user ‘Manoj Bajaj’ shared the viral video on August 31, 2025, with the caption, “Nowadays, Congress supporters and the opposition scrutinise Modi’s visits under a microscope. But look at the misdeeds during Congress rule — how the post of Prime Minister was reduced to a joke. In this video, during the visit of the Chinese Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi appears to act like the Prime Minister, treating Manmohan Singh like a personal secretary — pushing him aside, giving him instructions, and not even allowing him to lead the delegation inside. The dignity of the PM’s post, representing 140 crore Indians, was trampled by this Italian woman.” (Check archive link.)

Investigation

To begin our investigation, we conducted a Google reverse image search by extracting the relevant keyframes. This led us to a post on Congress's official X account dated June 16, 2015, where pictures of the scenes featured in the video can be seen. The caption with the post read "Chinese Parliamentary delegation meets Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh."

Upon searching with relevant keywords, we found several news reports about this meeting. A similar Zee News report dated June 16, 2015, used the screenshots from the viral video. According to the report, "A parliamentary delegation from China called on former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh in the national capital on Tuesday. Also present on the occasion was Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The delegation, led by the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Zhang Dejiang, had earlier met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several prominent Indian parliamentarians."

To verify further, Vishvas News spoke with senior Congress leader Pranav Jha, who called the viral claim ‘completely fake’.

During the meeting with the Chinese delegation, Sonia was the Congress Party President, and Dr Singh was a Rajya Sabha MP. He was not the PM at the time. Dr Singh had served as the PM from May 22, 2004, to May 26, 2014, whereas the viral video dates back to June 2015.

Facebook user Manoj Bajaj, who shared the viral video with a false claim, has over 14000 followers.

Conclusion: Our investigation found the viral claim to be misleading. The video dates back to 2015, when Dr Manmohan Singh was no longer the Prime Minister. The claim alleging that Sonia Gandhi disrespected the Prime Minister in an official forum is misleading.