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HomeFact CheckUnion Budget 2025: Viral Photo Showing CEC With Nirmala Sitharaman Is From...

Union Budget 2025: Viral Photo Showing CEC With Nirmala Sitharaman Is From 2020 When He Was Finance Secretary

Authors

Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.

Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.

Claim

Rajiv Kumar, chief election commissioner of India, seen with Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her team following Sitharaman unveiling her eighth consecutive Union budget on Saturday (February 1, 2025).

“The Chief Election Commissioner refuses to meet the Opposition for months, claiming a busy schedule, yet finds time to visit the Finance Ministry. Is he advising on the Budget or taking orders,” read an X post, dated February 2, 2024, which went viral against the backdrop of Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party accusing Kumar of “destroying” the credibility of the Election Commission of India and alleging that he was indulging in politics by issuing a notice over his claim that the BJP-led Haryana government was “mixing poison” in the Yamuna river.

Fact

Newschecker ran a reverse image search, which led us to multiple news reports, seen here, here and here, featuring similar photos and videos, stating that they are from February 1, 2020 and that they show Sitharaman, along with then Union finance MoS Anurag Thakur, with their main thinktank advisors just before presenting the Union Budget in the Parliament. The current finance MoS is Pankaj Chaudhury.


We also came across this Getty Images photo, dated February 1, 2020, with the caption reading, “Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, holding a folder containing the Union Budget documents, poses for photographers along with MoS for Finance Anurag Thakur and a team of officials, outside the Ministry of Finance, North Block, on February 1, 2020 in New Delhi, India. Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for the financial year 2020-21.

”We learnt that Rajiv Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1984 batch, was appointed as the finance secretary in July 2019. He retired in February 2020 and was appointed as the chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) in April that year. He was then appointed as election commissioner in August 2020, filling the vacancy left by Ashok Lavasa, who resigned to join the Asian Development Bank after a reportedly tense relationship with the BJP-led government at the Centre. On May 15, 2022, Rajiv Kumar, took over as the 25th Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), which confirms that the viral photo is not from his tenure as CEC.

Also Read: Viral Photo Of Dhirendra Shastri’s Letter ‘Predicting’ Mahakumbh Stampede Is AI Generated

Result: False

Source
Getty Images photo
PIB press release, May 15, 2022
Mint report, July 31, 2019


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Authors

Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.

Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.

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