Social media can make zeroes out of heroes in a jiffy. Fact checks and quick rebuttals can silence the best of propaganda in no time. One false claim and one becomes a favourite target of the netizens. TRS Party’s first family’s Kavitha Kalwakuntla discovered this the hard way the other day when she made some claims about the paddy production in Telangana.

The other day, in an interview to the news agency ANI, she slammed the Central Government on the paddy procurement issue and claimed that the Telangana state produces more than 40 per cent of all the paddy produced during the summer season in India. But, soon, Netizens began questioning the veracity of her claims.

Vijaya Gopal, a netizen, posted details of the paddy procured state wise and year-wise by the Food Corporation of India. He questioned her claims and said that she was making tall but unsubstantiated claims. He said she was falsifying figures and making false claims. Soon, netizens began slamming her and questioned her false claims.

According to the official data in 2021-22, 1279.27 lakh tonnes of rice was produced in the country of which 502.80 lakh tonnes were procured by the Central Government’s FCI.Contrary to Telangana’s claims of producing huge amounts of paddy, the production was just 108.88 lakh tonnes. Of this, the Centre procured just 44 lakh tonnes from Telangana. Can a mere 44 lakh tonnes be 40 percent of 502.80 lakh tonnes, the netizens questioned.