Following the 'Chalo Dilli' rally led by the Indian National Congress (INC) at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi on 1 November, visuals claiming to be linked to the protests are going viral on social media.
(An archived version of a similar claim can be found here.)
Is it true?: No, both claims are false, as the images are AI-generated.
How did we find out?:
Image 1: An image of a crowd is being shared with the claim that it shows the Ramlila Maidan at 9:30 AM on the day of the rally.
While observing the image, we noticed that the pictures on the banners purportedly showing Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi do not resemble them.
We ran a keyword search and found an image shared by news agency Reuters of the stage at the rally.
We compared the two images and concluded that the stage in the viral image looks different from the actual image of the stage at the rally.
Is it AI?: We ran the image through an AI detector, Hive Moderation, which flagged it as 69% likely to have been generated by AI.
We ran the image through an AI detector, Sightengine, which indicated it is very likely AI-generated.
Following this, we ran the image through SynthID Detector, which concluded the content was generated or edited using OpenAI tools because it detected a SynthID watermark.
Image 2: The second image claims to show a report by The Indian Express with a headline that reads, 'Indian Railways Sees Massive Surge in Passengers Ahead of Chalo Delhi Rally'.
The image also includes a visual purportedly showing the crowd at a railway station.
We ran a keyword search using the headline and could not find any reports by The Indian Express on the same.
Following this, we compared the viral image with the front page of The Indian Express newspaper from 1 November, and the format didn't match.
We noticed some other irregularities in the viral image.
The image supposedly shows a report from 'Monday, 27 October 2026'. However, 27 October 2026 was a Tuesday.
We also observed that the train name/number in the image appears blurry, a sign of AI.
Is it AI?: We ran the image through Hive Moderation, which flagged it as almost 96.2% likely to have been generated by AI.
We also ran the image through Sightengine, which indicated it is very likely AI-generated.
After this, we ran the image through SynthID Detector, which concluded the content was made or edited with OpenAI.
Conclusion: Both images are AI-generated and don't show authentic visuals related to the rally.
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