Fact Check: Rishi Sunak seeking blessings at a Temple is not a recent image

New Delhi, Oct 27: Rishi Sunak a Hindu became the first person of Indian origin to take over as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In 2019, Sunak took oath as member of the parliament holding the Bhagwad Gita.

During his first address after taking charge as PM, he proudly displayed religious roots by sporting the sacred Kalawa thread. He has time and again embraced his Hindu heritage and this has earned him praise from several quarters.

Now a claim has gone viral stating that Sunak sought the blessings of a Hindu monk before he was sworn in as Prime Minister. In the video Sunak can be seen kneeling in front of a saffron clad monk. His wife Akshata Murthy is also seen interacting with various people dressed in saffron.

A search made by OneIndia led us to a tweet posted by Sunak from August 18 this year. This tweet carried a picture of him and his wife wearing saffron shawls. Today I visited the Bhaktivedanta Manor temple with my wife Akshata to celebrate Janmashtami, in advance of the popular Hindu festival celebrating Lord Krishna's birthday, Sunak said in the tweet.

We also found the Temple's Facebook page where the images were posted on August 18. As the two day Janmashtami festival approaches at Bhaktivedanta Manor, we were honoured to have Rishi Sunak visit today to deliver his well-wishes and gratitude to all the 1,500 volunteers for all their hard work over the festival period.

He said that through challenging times the Bhagavad Gita has given him the strength to continue and likewise, all the volunteers at Bhaktivedanta Manor who are helping during the Janmashtami festival will give strength, encouragement and inspiration to tens of thousands of visitors who will join the festivities tomorrow and on Sunday.

Sunak gave Bhaktivedanta Manor and ISKCON a heartfelt thank you and was very grateful for all the work, messages and teachings we give to others, the post read.

We also found another post on Instagram which was posted by keshavaswami. The post read, "it was a pleasure to meet [Rishi Sunak] & Akshata Murthy a few weeks ago. 'Rishi' means a sage, a great thinker, derived from 'drsya' which means 'spiritual vision.' We talked about the need for wisdom that breathes in a world that's suffocating from materialism."

This makes it clear that the video of Sunak and his wife seeking the blessings at a Temple is from August 18 and not after his appointment as British Prime Minister.