Vande Bharat train driver in Kerala holding umbrella to cover from water leak before flag off? Fact Check

As a series of Vande Bharat Express trains are being flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi frequently, one claim suggesting leaks from the air-conditioning vents and the driver holding an umbrella inside the engine room surfaced on social media platforms. The context was the inauguration of Vande Bharat train between Kasargod and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala by PM Modi on April 25, 2023.

Just before the inauguration,  was that a small water leak through the AC vents was reported in one of the coaches and it was fixed soon by the technical team before the inauguration.

Dear @narendramodi please stop making things. Clearly you are utterly incapable to make anything right. 🙄
“VANDE BHARAT” on the 1st day of inauguration rain water started leaking from the roof of VB in Kerala. A picture is worth a thousand words.#ModiFailsIndia pic.twitter.com/Vfsaq8qHYb

— Hisamuddin Khan (@Hisamud47588796) April 27, 2023

However, a picture has gone viral ahead of the inauguration showing the driver at the cokpit of the Vande Bharat train with an umbrella over his head, suggesting AC vent leaking and faulty train being inaugurated by the PM. The claim reads: “”Dear @narendramodi please stop making things. Clearly you are utterly incapable to make anything right. “VANDE BHARAT” on the 1st day of inauguration rain water started leaking from the roof of VB in Kerala. A picture is worth a thousand words.”

It has been shared here and here.

FACT CHECK

When the Digiteye India team fact-checked the claim, using Google Reverse Image Search of the visual, an old 2017 tweet surfaced in our results suggesting that it was indeed a tweet by well-known financial journalist Sucheta Dalal who shared it on August 9, 2017. She also shared a video showing a leaking train and the driver operating inside the engine room with an umbrella overhead.

Railway safety? @sureshpprabhu and @RailMinIndia need to take a serious look without victimising whistleblower pic.twitter.com/Ue7rv0LwTP

— Sucheta Dalal (@suchetadalal) August 9, 2017

When we searched for related news, a news report in Indian Express dated August 11, 2017 suggested that the train driver was holding an umbrella over the control panel to save it from leaking roof, and the incident happened near Dhanbad in Jharkhand.

Secondly, we searched for the cokpit or engine switchboard of the Vande Bharat Express and found that the video in circulation was of older versions of the Indian Railway, not of VB trains being inaugurated by PM Modi.

Hence, the claim that it was the water leaking train before inauguration in Kerala was false.

Claim: “VANDE BHARAT” train on the 1st day of inauguration was seen leaking rain water from the roof in Kerala.
Conclusion: FALSE as the image was taken from an old video shared 2017.
Rating: Totally False —