A set of images showing Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav photographed with foreign delegates, is viral with false claims that he has been conferred with the 'youngest politician award at 30'.
BOOM found that the viral photographs were captured during his first foreign trip as the deputy chief minister of Bihar in August 2016. He visited the headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Bihar Vidhan Sabha election concluded with the Bhartiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance winning majority seats. In the polls, Tejashwi Yadav led the Rashtriya Janata Dal won 75 seats giving a tough fight to the NDA.
According to the data available, the BJP won 72 seats leaving behind the alliance partner Nitish Kumar led Janata Dal (United) with 42 seats in its account. The Congress has contested 70 seats but won only 19 and is being cited for the failure of the Mahagathbandhan alliance.
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The viral posts claim that Tejashwi Yadav has won the youngest politician award at London. The caption mistakenly states 'youngest political' award. It is viral with a Hindi caption that translates to: "Nineth fail is enough friends... Tejashwi Yadav got the youngest political award in London at the age in which your father used to sell tea !! Hopefully you guys now like dying of shame!"
(In Hindi: नौवीं फेल तो बहुत हो गया बंदरों...जिस उम्र में तुम्हारे पापा चाय बेचते थे उस उम्र में सबसे युवा राजनीतिक अवार्ड तेजस्वी यादव को लंदन में मिला था !! उम्मीद है अब तुम लोग शर्म से मर जाना पसंद करोगे !)
The posts can be seen below and its archived version can be seen here and here.
With the same false claims, the photographs are viral on Twitter (archive) as well.
Fact Check
BOOM looked closely at one of the photos and saw 'Nations Unies' (Unites Nations) written in French on the building behind Tejashwi Yadav.
Image 1
We ran the photo through reverse image search and found a full photograph published in Prabhat Khabar on August 17, 2016, when Tejashwi Yadav had visited Geneva, Switzerland. He had then met with the director for United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
Image 2
As the building behind Tejashwi Yadav has 'Nations Unies' written on it, we could ascertain that it is the United Nations head quarter at Geneva, Switzerland. Taking clues from this, we ran a reverse image search using 'tejashwi yadav united nations' as keywords. We found a tweet by the official handle of Tejashwi Yadav.
The leader had served as deputy chief minister of Bihar in 2016 and travelled to Geneva for the meeting. He, on August 17, 2016, had posted several photos including the viral one.
He wrote: "Had fruitful meeting with UNECE & IRF at United Nations HQs in Geneva. "
Image 3
The reverse image search yielded no satisfactory results. We, however, found that the woman with Tejashwi Yadav in the viral photo is also present in one of the photographs Yadav tweeted from Geneva in August 2016.
We compared the viral photograph and the images that Yadav tweeted. The attire of Tejashwi Yadav is same in all the photos thus those were taken during his Geneva visit. See below.
Also Read:Bihar Elections: NDA Wins A Majority, RJD Single Largest Party