A screenshot of a morphed tweet, in which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asks Prime Minister Narendra Modi why Olympian Neeraj Chopra stood second in the photograph despite clinching the gold medal, is being shared on social media platforms.
While a tweet had gone out from Rahul Gandhi's verified Twitter account at the same time as the timestamp seen in the screenshot, it had nothing to do with Chopra, who won India's first gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics two days after the "tweet" was allegedly posted.
CLAIM
The said tweet from Rahul Gandhi's verified account is being shared to mock Gandhi, who has often being targeted with misinformation.
The tweet, shared along with a picture of the three winners of the javelin throw event, goes on to say, 'Is it right to stand in the second position despite coming first? Answer Modiji'.
An archived version of this post can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND
Comparison between the viral tweet and an actual tweet of Gandhi.
(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)
Further, it must be noted that Neeraj Chopra won India's first gold in athletics at the men's javelin throw final on 7 August, whereas the screenshot in the claim is dated 5 August.
After Chopra clinched the gold, Rahul Gandhi celebrated his victory in posts on Facebook as well as Instagram, expressing the nation's pride in the Olympian as he shared a photo of Chopra in action at the javelin throw finals.
The picture shared in the claim shows Neeraj Chopra's medal ceremony at the Tokyo Olympics on 7 August, whose video was uploaded to the verified Olympics' YouTube channel and can be seen at the 01:55-minute mark.
We searched Wayback Machine, an internet archiving website, for more tweets by Rahul Gandhi. We did not come across an archive of Gandhi's account from 5 August. Further, as illustrated, it is not possible that he could have tweeted a photo of Chopra's victory two days before it happened.
A 6 August archive of the politician's handle showed no more tweet other than the ones seen at the time of writing this article.
Clearly, the screenshot used in the claim is edited and does not show an actual tweet from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's verified Twitter account.
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