Claim: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s post in social media states that he passed away.
Conclusion: Misleading. The mistake was caused by Meta’s AI generated translation from Kannada to English.
Rating: Misleading — 
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A screenshot is circulating online that shows a post by the official Facebook page Chief Minister of Karnataka. The English in the post is awkward, stating that CM Siddaramaiah passed away, followed by unrelated fragments about paying last respects to actress B. Saroja Devi.
The post read : “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah passed away yesterday multilingual star, senior actress B. Took darshan of Sarojadevi’s earthly body and paid his last respects.”
Facebook user Keshav Iyengar shared such a post below sarcastically suggesting the CM’s office needs English teachers. This news shared by various channels sparked confusion and mockery online. Here is the link of the facebook post and screenshot below .
https://www.facebook.com/keshav.iyengar.56/posts/cms-office-needs-english-teachers/4033465863534806/
FACT CHECK
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is very much alive and was in fact paid respects to the late B. Saroja Devi, the iconic multilingual actress who passed away recently. DigitEYE India fact checked this and realized that there was a big mistake due to the AI-generated auto translation from Kannada to English.
The same can be seen in the screenshot above after the caption where it says to “Rate this translation”. Even though the original Facebook post was deleted by CM Siddaramaiah’s official account, a clarification post was soon made.
CM Siddaramaiah’s team took to Facebook and X, criticising the faulty translation of Kannada to English. He further adds that such cases are “especially dangerous when it comes to official communications.”
Faulty auto-translation of Kannada content on @Meta platforms is distorting facts & misleading users. This is especially dangerous when it comes to official communications.
My Media Advisor Shri K V Prabhakar has formally written to Meta urging immediate correction.
Social… pic.twitter.com/tJBp38wcHr
— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) July 17, 2025
CM Siddaramaiah also said that his Media Advisor Shri K V Prabhaka has sent an email to Meta, raising serious concerns about this issue. Find an image of the complaint shared by the Chief Minister below :
Other news outlets like Deccan Herald have reported that B. Saroja Devi died on July 14, 2025, and CM Siddaramaiah visited to pay respects. Find the link to the report here.
Another report by the Hindustan Times confirms that CM Siddaramaiah instructed his media advisor to file a complaint with Meta regarding the mistranslation. Find the link of the report here and an image below.
On July 18, 2025, Meta has apologised to the Chief Minister. Acknowledging the error in its translation system, a Meta spokesperson said in a statement: “We fixed an issue that briefly caused this inaccurate Kannada translation. We apologise that this happened.” This was covered by Hindustan Times here.
PTI report confirm this as seen below:
Hence, the claim that CM Siddaramaiah died is completely false.
