What was claimed
Reform UK edited the announcement of its Harrow candidate Dr Savitha Prakash after initially posting a picture of her wearing a headscarf.
Our verdict
There is absolutely no evidence this is true. Both Reform UK and Dr Prakash say the headscarf image is fake and they didn’t publish it.
Social media posts have claimed that Reform UK edited the announcement of one of its candidates in Harrow and replaced a photo of her wearing a headscarf after receiving “backlash”. But there’s absolutely no evidence this is true.
A post viewed hundreds of thousands of times on X is captioned “Reform edits candidate announcement after backlash” and includes two images of Dr Savitha Prakash, a candidate for Wealdstone South and chair of the Harrow branch of Reform. One of the images appears to show her wearing a headscarf and the other doesn’t.
The X account sharing this version of the claim describes itself as “parody” in its profile, but a number of other posts appear to have shared similar claims in earnest, with many of the comments responding to them apparently taking the claim at face value.
A different version of the claim shared on Facebook and Instagram suggests Reform UK “dropped two versions” of Dr Prakash, and that the first image of her in a headscarf was replaced after “backlash”.
But we could find no evidence Reform UK or the local branch posted the image of Dr Prakash wearing a headscarf.
Dr Prakash told Full Fact that “the image showing me wearing a headscarf is edited and not genuine”. She added: “I am Hindu and do not wear a headscarf. To my knowledge, neither I nor Reform Harrow put out any such image.” Reform UK also told Reuters that the headscarf image was fake.
The Harrow branch of Reform UK posted Dr Prakash’s candidate announcement on Facebook at 10:04am and X at 10:05am on 9 April, using the picture that does not show her wearing a headscarf.
There is no evidence of an earlier picture with a headscarf, or of her announcement picture being changed on either of the posts. Dr Prakash’s candidate announcement was preceded and followed by other graphics of the party’s Harrow candidates.
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Other photos on Dr Prakash’s social media profiles, and in a recent news article about her, do not show her wearing a headscarf.
The earliest version of the image showing Dr Prakash wearing a headscarf that we could find online was posted on X at 7:44pm on 9 April, after the announcements from the local party, by the account that describes itself as “parody”.
Before sharing content like this that you see on social media, it’s important to consider whether it comes from a reliable source. Our Full Fact toolkit contains guides to help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there is no evidence Reform UK edited its candidate announcement or posted a picture of Dr Prakash wearing a headscarf, and both Reform UK and Dr Prakash say the headscarf image is fake.
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Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more. Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy.