A purported news clipping floating across social media platforms claims that Congress president Sonia Gandhi is the 12th richest politician in the world. The same clipping was also shared last year. कितना लूटा है मेरे देश को… अब तो जागो मेरे देशवासियों,! दुनिया के सबसे 12 धनी नेताओं में शामिल #सोनिया गांधी, कुल संपत्ति 2 अरब डॉलर, मतलब 1 खरब रुपए से भी ज्यादा,!!! तो गुलामों… मोदी जी से 15 लाख मांगने के बजाय, अपनी #भूरी काकी, #मालकिन से 1-1 करोड़ मांग लो…😀 pic.twitter.com/jmmbp2W4h4 — नवजीवन कर्मकार 1️⃣K 🚩 (@NabajibanKarma1) September 24, 2020 A Facebook page I Support Modi Ji and BJP shared another newspaper clipping on September 27, 2018, according to which Sonia Gandhi is “fourth richest in the world”. Affixed to the clip is a caption that poses the question – “अम्बानी अदानी ने लाखों लोगो को रोजगार दिए कारखाने खोले तब अमीर बने. पर सोनिआ गाँधी कैसे अमीर बानी? (Ambani Adani became rich after giving jobs to lakhs of people and opening factories. But how did Sonia Gandhi manage to become rich?)” The post was shared nearly 4,000 times at the time of writing this article. Posted by I Support Modi Ji and BJP on Thursday, 27 September 2018 The claim about Gandhi’s net worth was circulated using another narrative by several individual users on Facebook who attempted to take a jibe at the politician – “सोनिया गाँधी विश्व की चौथी सबसेअमीर महिला है…और ये पैसे उसने “मनरेगा” में मेहनत-मजदूरी कर के कमाये है (Sonia Gandhi is the fourth richest woman in the world and she earned this money by working hard under MGNREGA.)” Alt News searched the newspaper cutting circulated by I Support Modi Ji and BJP using keywords from the report and found that it was the same article published by Dainik Jagran on March 14, 2012. Social media rumours claimed that Gandhi was either the fourth richest “person” or the fourth richest “woman” in the world. However, the Dainik Jagran article said that Gandhi was the fourth richest “politician” in the world. According to the report, “American website Business Insider made this claim. As per the site, Sonia Gandhi has a net worth of between US$ 2-19 billion.” The same was also reported by several other media outlets, including Aaj Tak, One India, Dainik Bhaskar and Swarajya News. Alt News looked for the Business Insider story mentioned in all of these reports and discovered a March 2, 2012 report titled – ‘Meet The 23 Richest Politicians In The World’. Gandhi was fourth in the list, with the article claiming that her net worth was between US$ 2-19 billion. The Business Insider story hyperlinked a website named ‘World’s Luxury Guide’ as its source. It also said that there are some disputes about Gandhi’s actual net worth and that the ‘National Election Watch’ put the same at US$200,000 (approximately Rs 1.35 crores at that time). 1. ‘World’s Luxury Guide’ Not only was this website unheard of, but the name ‘World’s Luxury Guide’ itself suggested its unreliability. When Alt News attempted to access the URL provided by Business Insider, we were redirected to a “Not Found” page. Accessing the website’s archived pages revealed that it has been taken down for over three years. A screenshot of the ‘World’s Luxury Guide’ article that lists the world’s richest politicians is provided below. Its achieved version can be accessed here. While Business Insider had provided ‘World’s Luxury Guide’ as the source, ‘World’s Luxury Guide’ had provided opensecret.org, forbes.com, bloomberg.com, wikipedia.org and guardian.co.uk as its sources. Forbes had published an article in 2011 titled – ‘India’s 100 Richest’ – which does not include Gandhi’s name. In 2012, The Guardian had published a report on the world’s richest leaders, however, it too did not include Gandhi., Alt News back-searched till 2010 on the website of Bloomberg but found nothing of relevance. The remaining attribution provided by Business Insider – OpenSecret – has never written any report on the Congress president. It was thus evident that Business Insider (and ‘World’s Luxury Guide’) was not a source that could be trusted. 2. ‘National Election Watch’ Business Insider mentioned in its article that the ‘National Election Watch’ put Sonia Gandhi’s net worth at US$200,000 (approximately Rs 1.37 crore in 2012). Accessing this link redirected us to a report that provided the assets declared by Sonia Gandhi before 2004, 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The latest figures (2014) put her net worth at over Rs 9.28 crore. As the Business Insider article was published in 2012, it must have referred to the figures Gandhi had disclosed in 2009 – Rs 1.37 crore. This matched the “disputed net worth” claims on Business Insider. A compendium published by the Association for Democratic Reform (ADR) in 2012 had also put Gandhi’s assets at Rs 1.37 crore.