Kerala, the southern state of India that recently faced the most devastating flood, made headlines for either the rising death tolls or the donations from all around the country and for the support that India is receiving from other nations. Meanwhile, the fake news market in India is also started to spread donation news and posts on social media to attract people.
Recently a post came out on Facebook on Sunday, August 26 that stated, "BJP ministers and MPs donate for Kerala, don't say that you have not received anything (translated)." The post was shared by Sreekumar Sreedharannair and the image of the post showed that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was surrounded by four people, including BJP MP V. Muraleedharan and Alphons Kannanthanam, who is the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Tourism.
The picture also showed that CM Vijayan was accepting a check of Rs. 25 Crore (S$ 4824845.93). As of now, the Facebook post has received more than 2000 comments and over 4000 likes and has been shared over 11000 times.
While some of the users on social media shared the same image by stating that BJP MP had donated the money, many other users zoomed the picture and shared the screenshot, which clearly showed that Rs 25 crore was not donated by any BJP minister, as it was a check from central petroleum public sector companies.
The BJP ministers just presented the check to the minister but the social media users have created their own story and spread it all over the platform, while some users took a step ahead to let people know about the real fact.
Later, BJP MP Muraleedharan had tweeted that he handed over the check on behalf of oil marketing companies and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited also twitted with the same picture that clarified the confusion created by people on social media.
