Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Sambit Patra tweeted a graphic with photos showing dilapidated school buildings in Uttar Pradesh and falsely claimed they were taken during the Samajwadi Party government's tenure in the state before 2017.
BOOM found that all three photos were taken during UP CM Yogi Adityanath's tenure. The BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 assembly elections.
The assembly election is going to be held in Uttar Pradesh in 7 phases from February 10, 2022, till March 7, 2022, with the results to be declared on March 10, 2022. Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party is considered the front runner among the opposition parties in the state which are eying to defeat the ruling BJP government.
The graphic has a set of three photos when translated reads, "Before 2017: Samajwadi Party government" and other three photos under the section "Yogi government"
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The same graphic was also shared by Patra on Facebook and tweeted by other BJP leaders including BJP Delhi spokesperson Naveen Kumar Jindal and Madhya Pradesh BJP's vice-president Jitu Jirati
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the set of three photos claims to be from Samajwadi Party's government tenure are actually from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's tenure and all were taken post 2017.
The first photo in the graphic is from January 2021, the second one from August 2018, and the third one from December 2020, respectively.
The photos show schools in different districts in the state and not a before-and-after transformation after the BJP came to power in the state.
Image 1
Search results for the first photo using Google Images showed a report from Umar Ujala dated January 7, 2021. The same photo in the viral graphic can be seen in the news report. The headline when translated reads, "The future of the country is carved in the dilapidated schools"
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The caption of the photo when translated reads, "Primary school number two of village Soram in Shahpur area - This school is 90 years old, which has become dilapidated. - Photo : MUZAFFARNAGAR"
Image 2
In the second photo, we can clearly spot the date and time when it was clicked mentioned, "'August 8, 2018, 10:25".
The search results for the photo using Google reverse image search showed a report on 'Uttar Pradesh.org', which had the same photo published in 2018. The headline when translated reads, "Chitrakoot: Floodwater inside primary school, kids and teachers are facing difficulties".
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Image 3
A Google reverse image search on the photo showed a news report from the website Newsaddaa with the same viral photo that was published on December 17, 2020.
The report mentions that the primary school is located in the Heda Padri area, Sukrauli, Kushinagar further stating that an officer who was sent to audit the school found it locked from the outside, and the school as teachers were not present. According to the report, the Block Education Officer (BEO) had warned absentee teachers of deducting their salaries.
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Image no 5,6,7
The remaining three images are recent and from a government school in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh. The search results for the remaining photos showed a tweet by BJP National Secretary and BJP Uttar Pradesh in-charge Y Satya Kuma, who had tweeted them on January 3, 2022, stating it's from a government school in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.
We also found a thread by a Twitter user Aryan Mishra dated December 30, 2021, talking about the government school in Bulandshahr and the astronomy lab in it.
In a photo tweeted by Mishra, we can see 'Sarla Thakral Astronomy Lab, Gram Panchayat - Chhaprawat' written. We found a news report on Mishra published by The Print in November 2019, that featured his start-up Spark Astronomy and reported that the Narendra Modi government is planning to build astronomy laboratories in Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNV) across India with the help.
We also found news reports on astronomy labs being installed in primary and secondary schools in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh as part of the new 2020 education scheme called 'Operation Kayakalp'