A morphed screenshot of a bulletin aired by news channel ABP News has gone viral with the claim that Congress leader and Wayand MP Rahul Gandhi tweeted that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is working towards a 'Hindu nation' by passing the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) and that his ancestors had always believed in the idea of an 'Islamic country'.
However, we found that the viral image is a morphed version of ABP News Hindi's bulletin aired in December 2019 when Gandhi had tweeted to criticise the CAB by saying that it was an "attack on the Indian constitution".
CLAIM
The text mentioned in the viral image states that Rahul Gandhi had "just now" tweeted about how he is against India becoming a 'Hindu nation' and that the same was aired on news channel ABP News.
You can view the archived version here.
(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)
The Quint received a query on the claim made in the viral image on its WhatsApp tipline as well.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We searched on YouTube handles of ABP News and ABP News Hindi with keywords 'Rahul Gandhi tweet' and came across a news bulletin from 10 December 2019 uploaded on ABP News Hindi's handle.
The caption along with the bulletin mentioned how Rahul Gandhi took a dig at the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), now Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 as it was notified by the central government on 10 January 2020.
On comparing the viral screenshot with the bulletin aired on ABP News Hindi, we found a stark difference in the text of the two.
Even the font used in the viral image is not the same as the one in the official bulletin.
Left: Viral screenshot. Right: 2019 bulletin aired by ABP News Hindi.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
On carefully looking at the two, we also noticed that the official bulletin has a shadow-like image behind the Congress leader's photo. However, in case of viral screenshot, a blurred backdrop can be seen and not the shadow feature.
On 10 December 2019, the Congress leader had tweeted that the CAB is an "attack on the Indian constitution".
"Anyone who supports it is attacking and attempting to destroy the foundation of our nation," he had written.
Further, we also found recent bulletins aired by ABP News and ABP News Hindi on 3 July and 2 July carrying Rahul Gandhi's tweet and it can be seen that the channel's current format is very different from the one seen in the viral image.
Clearly, a morphed screenshot of an ABP News Hindi's bulletin was used to falsely claim that Rahul Gandhi tweeted he couldn't see India becoming a 'Hindu nation.'
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