Bihar’s Minister of Urban and Housing Department, Suresh Kumar Sharma, recently shared a photograph that talked about the achievements of the government's street lighting programme, especially in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.
However, we found that the photograph he shared was actually that of a flyover in Hyderabad, Telangana that was inaugurated in August 2020.
CLAIM
Sharma shared the photo with a caption, “काम किया है, काम करेंगे, मुजफ्फरपुर का विकास करेंगे |” (Translation: We have worked, we will work, we will develop Muzaffarpur.)
This post comes when Bihar is all set to vote in the Assembly elections beginning later this month. Sharma is the BJP candidate for Muzaffarpur seat in the upcoming Bihar elections.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
When we did a reverse image search of the photo and results from that led us to the inauguration of a bridge, in Hyderabad’s Bairamalguda junction.
We found a tweet by KT Rama Rao, the working president of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Telangana’s Minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development, which had the same photo.
We also found a news report by The News Minute, from the day of the inauguration, which carried the same photograph that was shared by the Bihar minister.
Taking the information from the post and the report, we looked for the flyover on Google Maps.
We first checked if the images shared by Rao was that of the flyover in Telangana. We found that the Google Map street view wasn’t updated and it showed the bridge under construction. However, we spotted the under-construction building next to the bridge in one of the photos shared by Rao. That building was also seen on Google Maps.
We then compared the building that can be seen in the distance in the image Sharma shared and it showed the same under-construction building.
Further, we also spoke to a reporter in Hyderabad who confirmed to us that the image is indeed from Hyderabad.
Evidently, the photo of a flyover from Hyderabad was shared to show development work done in the Bihar’s Muzaffarpur.
(With inputs from SM HoaxSlayer)
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