A collage of two photographs which claims to show the difference between the tenure of the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government in the state of Uttar Pradesh and the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is being shared ahead of the Assembly polls in the state.
One photo shows a bunch of young professionals sitting in front of a computer and working, while the other shows clashes between the police and the youth.
However, one of the photos which has also been shared by the official media cell Twitter handle of SP, is nearly a decade old and is not from Uttar Pradesh but Mumbai, while the second photo is from a 2018 protest which took place in Lucknow.
CLAIM
The party shared the photo with the text which read "चेहरा_साफ_है" (It's clear).
An archived version of the post canoe viewed here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
The photo on the top, which has been tagged as an image of Uttar Pradesh from before 2017 is actually almost a decade old stock image from Mumbai. While the second image is from a protest by the Basic Teachers Certificate (BTC) aspirants that happened in Lucknow in 2018.
Let's take a look at the photographs one by one.
IMAGE 1
Image claims to show the youth Uttar Pradesh.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
We conducted a reverse image search using Google and came across the photograph on Getty Images, an online repository for images.
Th image was captioned, "Software programmers work on computers as they develop applications at the MoFirst Solutions Pvt. office in Mumbai, India, on Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011".
The image is from Mumbai and not Uttar Pradesh.
(Source: Getty Images/Screenshot)
IMAGE 2
On conducting a Google reverse image on the photograph, we came across an article on news website 'Gaon Connection' on 3 November 2018 which spoke about lathicharge on BTC aspirants in Lucknow.
Screenshot from Gaon connection.
(Source: Gaon Connection/Screenshot)
It noted that the aspirants were protesting outside the Vidhan Bhawan in Lucknow when the police lathicharged them.
Another report in Navbharat Times mentioned that nearly 68,500 teachers were protesting alleging discrimination in the selection process.
Clearly, of the two photographs, one is from Mumbai, and the other is indeed from Uttar Pradesh while the BJP was in power.
WHAT ABOUT THE STATE OF EMPLOYMENT IN UP?
While it is true that the unemployment rate did touch 17 percent in August 2016, it decreased substantially to 3.7 percent in January 2017 before the current government took charge, according to the monthly unemployment rates time series maintained by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
UP saw the highest rise in unemployment in urban areas in 2018, according to data compiled by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
Keeping the pandemic time data aside, India's unemployment rose to a 45-year high of 6.1 percent in 2017-18, according to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).
UP was one of the states that was surveyed by the NSSO and its unemployment rate was almost at par with the national average at 6.2 percent.
You can read a detailed report here.
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