Woman seen with Rahul Gandhi in viral image is not Manmohan Singh’s daughter

What is the claim? 

An image of Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi standing with a woman in a brown shirt has been shared on social media, claiming that the woman is former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's daughter Amrit Singh. The post also includes Singh’s photo at the bottom right. 

One such post on X (formerly Twitter) sharing the image with the caption, "Hi #RaulVinci. Where were you travelling with Amrit Singh, Director, Accountability, Liberty and Transparency of Open Society Justice Initiative - a project funded by George Soros?" At the time of writing this fact-check, the post has garnered  389,400 views, 13,000 likes, and 6,400 reposts. While another post alleged, "There is something very, very sinister going on. I hope the Indian govt and agencies are on top of this." An archived version of these posts and similar others can be found here, here, and here. 

The image is being shared on Facebook with similar claims, and archived links can be viewed here, here, and here. It also went viral in 2023 with the same claims.

Screenshots of viral posts circulating on social media. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts) 

However, the woman in the image is not Singh. The woman in the viral picture with Gandhi is Amulya Gopalakrishnan, a columnist and wife of Amitabh Dubey, who oversees research and monitoring at the Indian National Congress (INC) party. 

What did we find?

We found that the now-viral image first surfaced in 2023, with social media users questioning the person's identity. At the time, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate had stated that the woman in the picture is Gopalakrishnan. In a post on X, Shrinate wrote, "The gentleman in the pic is Rahul Gandhi’s childhood friend Amitabh Dubey, and the lady is Amitabh’s wife, Amulya." The post is archived here.  

Screenshot of a post shared by Supriya Shrinate (Source: X/Screenshot)

A close look at the image showed that the woman in the image bears very little resemblance to the former prime minister's daughter.

A Google search showed that Gopalakrishnan is a journalist and columnist who writes for multiple Indian media houses, such as The Indian Express, The Times of India, and The Frontline. We compared her profile image from The Indian Express with the viral image. Based on the facial structure and features, we could infer that the woman in the viral image resembles the journalist more than Singh. 

A comparison of the woman seen in the viral picture with Amulya Gopalakrishnan and Amrit Singh. 
(Source: X/The Indian Express/News18)

Gopalakrishnan married Dubey in January 2011, as The Times of India reported, and Gandhi had also attended the wedding. Dubey is the son of Suman Dubey, who was an associate of the Gandhi family and one of the board of trustees of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. He is in charge of research and monitoring at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and the president of Delhi’s All India Professionals Congress (AIPC).

While Logically Facts could not find the exact date and the location of the image, the evidence shows that the woman in the image has been misidentified. 

Amrit Singh and the George Soros link

Manmohan Singh’s daughter Amrit Singh was indeed a director of the Accountability Division at the Open Society Justice Initiative, part of the Open Society Foundations funded by American philanthropist George Soros. Earlier, an image of Soros and his wife Tamiko Bolton had gone viral with the false claim that it was Singh. Our fact-check can be read here.  

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has often linked Gandhi with Soros, accusing him of meeting close aides of the philanthropist to "destabilize the government." The allegations had emerged in the aftermath of U.S.-based research firm Hindenburg's reports of alleged financial misconduct by billionaire Gautam Adani's companies. The Congress had demanded a probe into the allegations. 

The verdict

An image of Rahul Gandhi standing with journalist Amulya Gopalakrishnan has been shared with the false claim that the woman is Manmohan Singh’s daughter, Amrit Singh, who formerly worked with an organization funded by billionaire George Soros.