“यह लो कांग्रेसी चमचों इसको पहचानों तुम्हारी राजमाता एंटोनिया सोनिया गांधी है…….😂😂😂😂😂😂…..अब क्या कहोगे चमचों अब भी झूठ लाओगे इसको क्या” (Look at this Congressi supporters and recognise your leader Antonia Sonia Gandhi. Now what what do you have to say? Will you all still claim that this a lie? – translated). A post is being circulated on social media, with purported images of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi in beachwear.

The images shared by right-wing Facebook page फिर एक बार मोदी सरकार (Phir ek bar Modi sarkar) have more than 10,000 shares in less than 24 hours.

In the last 24 hours, the post has been picked up by several other right-wing Facebook groups and pages, including WE SUPPORT PM MODI, Vote 4 BJP and We support Yogi Adityanath, among others. It has also been shared by individual users.

Where are the images really from?

To establish the origin of the photographs, Alt News reverse image searched the post via Google.

The photographs are actually of Swiss actress Ursula Andress on the sets of the first Bond movie Dr. No. The man pictured with Andress is Scottish actor Sean Connery, the first actor to portray the fictional character of British spy James Bond.

Many people in the comments section of the page फिर एक बार मोदी सरकार also called out the bluff and posted the original photographs.

Not the first time

This isn’t an isolated incident, but several attempts have been made in the past as well to malign Sonia Gandhi’s reputation by posting fake or morphed photos with sexist captions.

फिर एक बार मोदी सरकार had photoshopped an image of a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and former President of Maldives Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to show that Gandhi is sitting on his lap. It had a massive share count of more than 36,000.

Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon’s photograph was used to claim it is the image of a young Sonia Gandhi as a “bar waitress”.

A photograph of Marilyn Monroe was morphed with Sonia Gandhi’s face, calling her a “bar dancer”.

As part of a patriarchal society, women constantly find themselves in the cross-hairs of misogynist propaganda meant to shame them and malign them. Sonia Gandhi has especially been a target of such propaganda to portray that she doesn’t confirm to ‘Indian culture’.

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