Nehara is elated on Sajith becoming presidential candidate ?

UNP working committee finally decided unanimously to approve UNP Deputy Leader, Minister Sajith Premadasa as their Presidential candidate after a number of discussions on September 26^th and subsequently various posts were published supporting this decision.

We found one photo claim in which award-winning actress and famous TV host Nehara Peiris was seen holding a photograph of Sajith Premadasa. The translation of the claim stated “I am very happy now and have been waiting for a long time to see Sajith become the Presidential Candidate” as shown below.

Same photo claims were seen being shared by a few other users as well and below is one such claim.

Fact Check

We decided to go a Google Reverse Image search on this photo and were unable to find a direct photo match to the claimed photo. Then we searched the social profiles of Nehara Pieris and were able to find a photo as below in her Instagram profile where she is seen holding a photograph of award winning-singer Uresha Ravihari.

This image which had been published on August 17^th carried this caption. “Thank you soooo much @designatorcj for this extremely Beautiful Handmade BEAD Portrait❤️❤️ gosh it’s so much work, patience and talent!! All the best, and DM them to get yo bead, collage portraits?”

Further investigation of the Nehara’s Instagram account revealed that she had made a statement about a similar fake photo claim on 25^th September stating that “I have noticed an edited post going viral on social media with my image. Please note that I DON’T support any political party or their campaigns!!”

In that photo claim Nehara has compared the original photo from her Instagram along with a screenshot of an edited version published by a Facebook page called “Dema දෙමා” in which she is seen holding a photo of SLPP presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa. However, when we inspected the mentioned fake photo claim, we noticed that post had already been deleted by the Facebook page.

Conclusion:

From our investigation, it is evident the claim that “I am very happy now and have been waiting for a long time to see Sajith become the Presidential Candidate – Nehara Peiris” is totally false and the image is an edited version of the original image published in the Instagram profile of actress Nehara Peiris.