Jitendra Patwari, State President of the Madhya Pradesh Congress, uploaded a fake image of a huge crowd on Twitter and portrayed it as the multitude of people participating in Congress family scion and revered figure in the party Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. Several social media users pointed this out in comments to the post by Jitendra Patwari.
Twitter user Lala (@FabulasGuy) pointed out that the image was a stock photo and it was originally shot in Nigeria and not during the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress party.
ये क्या ले आए सुबह सुबह जीतु भैया 😹 pic.twitter.com/IwpBa5B9cc
— Lala 🇮🇳 (@FabulasGuy) October 16, 2022
OpIndia also reverse-searched the image and found that it is not a photo of Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. The image was captured in Nigeria during the Azusa Street Revival crusade.
As one can see, the flood lights in the original image were digitally removed but the objects in the background were there.
The Azusa Street Revival was a historically significant series of Christian revival meetings held in Los Angeles, California. It was led by African-American preacher William J. Seymour.
The Congress has a long history of fabricating facts and presenting them in order to salvage its leaders and the Congress party’s sinking ship. Very recently, Congress shared a fake survey by the news channel Aaj Tak to claim that Rahul Gandhi is more popular than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress party praised its leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (October 13) morning for apparently surpassing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the people’s choice, based on a fake poll credited to the news channel Aaj Tak. According to the ‘photoshopped survey,’ the Congress scion has a 52% approval rating, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a 46% approval rating.
While boasting about the ‘changing public perception,’ the official handle of Delhi Congress tweeted, “The mood of the nation is changing. People have now decided to teach a lesson to those who make fake promises (hinting at the BJP and PM Modi).” The archived version of the tweet can be accessed here.
The joy of the Congress party, unfortunately, was short-lived, as Aaj Tak was obliged to debunk the misinformation spread in its name.
CLARIFICATION: @INCDelhi इस ट्वीट में शेयर की गई जानकारी पूरी तरह से गलत है. यह तस्वीर Photoshopped है. आजतक ने ऐसा कोई सर्वे नहीं कराया है, यह पूरी तरह Fake है. हम आशा करते हैं कि आपके जैसे जिम्मेदार राजनीतिक संगठन आजतक के नाम पर गलत ख़बर वाले इस ट्वीट को तुरंत हटा लेंगे
— AajTak (@aajtak) October 13, 2022
धन्यवाद https://t.co/lsC8YtHA6Z
The news agency clarified in a tweet that no such poll was done by their team and that the photograph published by the Delhi Congress had been manipulated.
