BJP Leader’s Post Comparing Modi & Rahul’s Rallies is Misleading

The pics used to draw a comparison are not from Rahul’s or Modi’s rallies.

Kailash Vijayvargiya posts a comparison showing Rahul Gandhi and PM Modi’s rallies while submitting their nomination. Here’s a fact check.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

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CLAIM

A post first shared by Kailash Vijayvargiya, the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on his official Facebook page has been doing the rounds on social media.

The post has two collages of people allegedly coming out in Varanasi and Wayanad to support Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi when they went to file their nominations for the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections respectively, with the caption :

“दो नामांकन की दो तस्वीरें !!!श्री नरेंद्र मोदी जी ने वाराणसी से नामांकन पत्र भरा और राहुल गाँधी ने वायनाड से!दोनों तस्वीरे देखिए, तय कर लें कि देश को क्या बनाना है वाराणसी या वायनाड? आपका ये फैसला देश का भविष्य तय करेगा!”

which loosely translates to :

“Two photos of two nominations! Shri Narendra Modi filed his nomination papers from Varanasi and Rahul Gandhi filed his from Wayanad! See both pictures, and decide what our country should be like – Varanasi or Wayanad? Your decision will decide the future of the country!”

The post had more than 1,100 shares, 3,600 reactions and more than 500 comments at the time this article was written.

The viral post by Kailash Vijayvargiya, the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The pictures with the same narrative are going viral on Twitter too.

TRUE OR FALSE

On cropping the images from the collage and conducting a reverse image search, The Quint found out that the pictures are neither from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nomination nor Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s.

WHAT DID WE FIND

A reverse image search on one of the pictures from the collage showed that it is from IUML’s Kerala Yatra led by State Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty in Malappuram town on 2 February 2016, according to an article by The Hindu .

The results of the reverse image search.

The screenshot of the original picture.

Similarly, another picture was traced back to a Shabir Shah rally in Srinagar on 30 May 2015, which again appeared in The Hindu .

The results of the reverse image search.

The screenshot of the original picture 

The third picture, it was discovered, was not from India but Pakistan. The photo was traced to 2011 rally held by PML-N’s Shahbaz Sharif against the then Pakistan President Zardari .

The original photograph was traced back to Pakistan.

Similarly, the next photo too, is from a Pakistan rally, again led by the PML-N on 9 June 2016 according to an article by Daily Pakistan, a Pakistani news website .

The original picture was traced back to 2016.

The next picture is of IUML workers celebrating the by-election victory at Malappuram Junction on 17 April 2017, according to a news report by The Hindu.

The original image was traced back to 17 April 2017

WHAT OF THE PHOTOS PUT UP TO DISPLAY MODI’S SHOW OF STRENGTH?

Meanwhile, the collage put up by Vijayvargiya to show Modi’s following at his nomination roadshow in Varanasi are true, as can be seen below.

Each of the photos were traced back to 24 April, a day prior to when Modi filed his nomination, on various news websites.

The original image was traced back to a still from Narendra Modi’s road show in Varanasi shared by ANI’s Twitter handle in a tweet. 

The original picture captioned as a sea of saffron.

The original picture can be traced back to the photo gallery by the Indianexpress for April 24 elections roundup.

The picture was taken a day prior to PM Modi filing his nomination papers 

The picture is from the road show conducted by PM Modi before filing his nomination papers 

The picture in the collage can be traced back to the day PM Modi filed his nomination papers 

Thus, while the photos depicting a ‘saffron wave’ at Modi’s nomination rally are true, albeit they are from a day prior to the actual nomination date, the photos used to show Gandhi’s “supporters” in Wayanad are from other unrelated occasions.

The post is manufactured to mislead the voters especially in light of the crucial time of the ongoing 2019 Lok Sabha Elections .

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