Fact Check: 2020 Image Of CEC Rajiv Kumar With FM Nirmala Sitharaman Shared As Recent
An image of former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman from February 2020 has been falsely claimed to be from a recent meeting as the Chief Election Commissioner.
The Verdict [Misleading]
- The image is from February 2020, when Rajiv Kumar was the finance secretary, not the chief election commissioner.
What is the claim?
An image of Indian Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar posing with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is holding a red-colored folder alongside other officials, has gone viral online. The photo, taken outside the Ministry of Finance, has been shared with claims that Kumar was spotted with the minister before her 2025 Union Budget speech.
Users questioned the independence and integrity of the Election Commission, as Delhi Assembly elections are scheduled for February 5, with results to be announced on February 8.
A Facebook user shared this image, with Kumar’s face circled in white and wrote, “Rajiv Kumar of the Election Commission presenting the budgetoth the BJP government at the Centre (translated from Hindi).” Archived versions of similar claims can be found here, here, here, and here.
However, we found that the image is from 2020 and not recent. Furthermore, at the time, Kumar was the finance secretary, not the CEC.
Here are the facts
A reverse image search led us to several reports (archived here and here) from 2020 with similar images. These images captured Sitharaman posing with officials outside the Ministry of Finance ahead of the Union Budget 2020-21 presentation. This indicated that the now-viral image is not recent but rather from a photography session before the 2020 budget presentation.
We found the original image (archived here) published by the Press Information Bureau on February 1, 2020, with the caption, “The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman departs from North Block to Rashtrapati Bhavan and Parliament House, along with the Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Anurag Singh Thakur and the senior officials to present the General Budget 2020-21, in New Delhi on February 01, 2020.”
Reuters and Getty Images also published similar images, stating that the images were taken outside the ministry before the 2020-21 Union Budget presentation. It is to be noted that Kumar, seen in this picture, was the then finance secretary, not the election commissioner. Kumar served as the finance secretary from July 2019 to August 2020, during which the Union Budget 2020-2021 was presented on February 1, 2020, and was appointed election commissioner on August 21, 2020.
Additionally, during the 2025 Union Budget presentation, Sitharaman wore a cream saree with a gold border and a red blouse, as seen in the video shared by DD News (archived here) on February 1, 2025. However, Kumar is absent in this video, contradicting the claim that he met Sitharaman.
Finance Minister @nsitharaman leaves from the Ministry of Finance for Rashtrapati Bhavan.
— DD News (@DDNewslive) February 1, 2025
She will present and read the #UnionBudget2025 at the Parliament through a tab, instead of the traditional 'Bahi Khata'. #Budget2025 #UnionBudget2025 #UnionBudget #BudgetWithDDNews… pic.twitter.com/As3llXb3sU
The verdict
An old image of then Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar posing with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman before the Union Budget 2020-21 presentation has been shared with the false claim that Kumar met Sitharaman in his capacity as the chief election commissioner.
This story was originally published by Logically Facts as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by ABP Live staff.
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