Hyderabad: Plumbing new depths of sycophancy, dozens of Mahila Congress activists happily posed for photographs claiming that they had donated blood to mark the birthday of party president Sonia Gandhi, at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad on?Monday.

The problem, however, was that very few of them — three by our count — had actually donated blood. The rest merrily posed for pictures on the stretcher.

State Mahila Congress president Akula Lalitha said that 15 activists had donated blood. She said it was common for publicity hounds to pose for pictures with fake claims.

Doctors from Red Cross Society, Barkatpura, who collected the blood, said that they had faced such situations many a times.