By Srijit Das
A video showing a '156 gm' gold bust of Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept inside a glass showcase has been shared on social media platforms falsely claiming that Saudi Arabia made and installed the statue in honour of the Indian prime minister.
BOOM found that a Gujarat-based jeweller made the gold bust to commemorate the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) landslide 2022 assembly election win in the state. The video was recorded during an exhibition in Mumbai.
PM Modi has recently become the first foreign government head to receive the Grand Cross of the Order of Honour by Greek President Katerina N Sakellaropoulou. Upon receiving the award, PM Modi tweeted saying that the honour shows the respect the people of Greece have towards India. In 2019, PM Modi received the UAE’s highest civilian award the ‘Order of Zayed’ by Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The video is being shared with a caption that states, "People make statues out of wax, but in Saudi Arabia, a Muslim country, they made and installed a gold statue of Modi. Share such.. Let somebody to get burning sensation.."
Click here to view the post.
Click here to view the post.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video and found a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) carrying the video from January 14, 2023.
The Hindi post about the video, done by news outlet Bharat 24, states that PM Modi's gold bust was placed at a gold exhibition in Mumbai.
Click here to view the post.
Taking a cue from the tweet, we ran a related keyword search for other news reports and found that several media outlets reported about the incident at that time.
The Indian Express, on January 20, 2023, published a report about the gold bust saying, "The jeweller, Basant Bohra, who hails from Rajasthan and had been settled in Surat for the last 20 years, is the owner of Radhika chains, a product by Veli Beli brand. The bust with 4.5 inch length and 3 inch width, weighs156 g. which according to Bohra, was a reference to the 156 seats won by the BJP in the recently-concluded Assembly elections."
We observed that the mention of Veli Beli brand and the gold bust's weight can be noticed in the viral video as well.
Another report by NDTV quoted Bohra saying, "I am a fan of Narendra Modi and wanted to make something as a tribute to him. It took around three months for nearly 20 artisans to make this bust at our factory. I am satisfied with the final outcome. There is no price tag because it is not for sale as of now".
News 18 India also aired an interview of the Gujarat-based jeweller on January 19, 2023. It can be seen below.
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