THE CLAIM
Inspired by the #10YearChallenge – that encourages social media users to share decade-old pictures of themselves juxtaposed with their current look – the BJP on Friday, 18 January, launched its own version of the challenge to reflect the progress under the Narendra Modi regime and take a dig at the UPA government before them.
In what is dubbed the #5YearChallenge, several party leaders and the official social media handles of the BJP put out several posts highlighting the various developments spanning the last five years – with posts about the Swachh Bharat Mission, rural electrification, road connectivity, Kumbh budget, etc.
One such post, showcasing the progress of the Western Peripheral Expressway, showed two images marking the before and after status of the project – in a bid to highlight the BJP’s contribution to its development.
The ‘before’ image on the left showed a stretch of barren land – intended to highlight the status of the project before the BJP came to power – while the ‘after’ image showed a completed, fully-operational expressway.
It was shared by the BJP’s official Twitter handle, and soon after by several of its regional handles like BJP Delhi, BJP Bengal, BJP Uttarakhand, BJP Himachal, BJP Chattisgarh, BJP Chandigarh, BJP Andhra Pradesh, etc.
THE TRUTH
A reverse search of the image on the left revealed that it is, in fact, an old photo of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway when it was under construction.
It was completed and inaugurated on 21 November 2016 by the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav.
Meanwhile, the one on the right is also not of the Western Peripheral highway. It is a photo of an operational section of the Delhi-Meerut expressway, the first phase of which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi last year in May.
The false images were widely shared on social media by several party workers, individuals users and Facebook groups after it was released by multiple BJP handles.
NOT THE FIRST TIME
This is not the first such instance where the BJP or one of its ministers shared fake or misleading images:
In April 2018, Piyush Goyal had put out misleading images purported to show electrification of India’s villages.
In November, in a major embarrassment for Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, the Mayor of the city had tweeted a picture from Seoul as the Sabarmati riverfront.
Also in November, a photo of an Indonesian road had gone viral as PM Modi’s infrastructural Push in India.
A screenshot of the tweet was widely circulated by several right-wing pages on Facebook, including fake news purveyor Post Card Fans.
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