A series of images from old rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are viral on social media purporting to be from road shows Modi is holding in 2019 as part of campaigning for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
The post has four photos and is being shared with a caption in Hindi, "नरेंद्र मोदी जी #वाराणसी रोड़ शो और महारैला…एक बार फिर मोदी सरकार" (Narendra Modi’s road show and maha rally...once again Modi Government).
Screenshot of the viral post.
Click here to view the post and here to view the archived post.
A Facebook page, Ganesh Rankawat shared the images with the same text and got more than 3.2k shares and 1.1k reactions at the time of writing the story. The comments on the post ranged from, “Namo Again” to “Har Har Modi Ghar Ghar Modi” to “Jai Ho Namo Namo 2019 Me Fir Se Modi Sarkar.”
The Facebook page has close to 12k likes, is followed by around 22.2k people and has Bharatiya Janata Party’s logo as its profile picture. The page has posts only related to the BJP.
BOOM ran a search on Facebook and Twitter with the same caption and found many people sharing the same photos with the same caption.
Click here
to see the list of people sharing the same photos.
We found the same post on Twitter as well. Though not very viral, it was shared with the same misleading claim of the images being from Modi’s Varanasi rally.
Screenshot of the post as is viral on Twitter.
Click here to
view the post and here to view the
archived post.
BOOM searched for all the four images and found that they are
from old rallies from different places.
Image 1:
The image of a rally with a huge gathering is claimed to be from Varanasi but a simple Google reverse image search of the image led us to results from the Hunkaar rally in Patna, Bihar from 2013.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official website carried the image in an article which is titled ‘Hunkaar rally is historic and will script a new chapter in history of India.’
Just before Modi started speaking, there were multiple blasts
near the venue of the rally and 83 people were injured and 2 were critical, reported
The Hindu.
Image 2:
The image with Modi on a truck covered with flowers in the
middle of the road with people all around is an old picture of him from a
roadshow in Varanasi in 2014 when Narendra Modi had filed nomination in
Varanasi. There were even reports
that said that people were brought in on rent for Modi’s roadshow.
Image 3:
The third image showing the same scene as the second photo is also from the 2014 rally in Varanasi. Taken at the same rally as the second photo, it is from the time Modi filed his nomination in Varanasi.
After multiple searches BOOM reached a blog which had the same elements in the image. The truck loaded with flowers and a banner reading, "अच्छे दिन आनेवाले है " and the car ahead of it are the same.
Image 4:
The image in which PM Modi is seen waving at a crowd from a car is from a rally in Varanasi from March, 2017 where after a roadshow, he addressed the people and spoke to them about the UP government blocking all the efforts of the Centre to develop the state.
In both the images which has PM Narendra Modi in them, Modi is seen wearing different clothes.
In February 2019, Modi visited Varanasi announced projects worth Rs. 2,900 crore. Modi all set to contest from Varanasi again for the 2019 elections.