Old photos of political rallies showing massive crowds were shared shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed his first rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on Sunday, 7 March, ahead of the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, with a claim that they showed the crowd at PM Modi’s rally.
However, we found that some photos were actually from the Left front rallies. While one of them was from 2019 at Brigade Parade Ground, another one was from a 2014 rally at the same location.
Interestingly, one of the photos was shared by several Congress-affiliated handles last week as that of a joint rally of Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)), and the Indian Secular Front (ISF) in Kolkata. The Quint’s WebQoof team had fact-checked the claim.
CLAIM
Two images showing a massive gathering of people were shared to show that PM Modi had attracted a huge crowd at the rally on Sunday.
One caption along with the photo posted by BJP Punjab’s official Facebook page carried a quote attributed to PM Modi that read, “I’ve been fortunate enough to address hundreds of rallies in political life, but in such a long term I’ve ever been blessed with such a huge crowd I’ve seen today.”
The photo was also shared by several BJP-affiliated handles on both Facebook and Twitter.
PHOTO 1
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PHOTO 2
Another photo shared by BJP-member CA OP Mishra claimed to be that of the rally from Sunday, and carried the hashtags #ModirSatheBrigade, #ModiBrigadeRally.
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WHAT WE FOUND
PHOTO 1
We had debunked the same image when the Congress and Left functionaries had shared it last week following the rally at Brigade ground. The image was also found in a report published by Peoples Dispatch in February 2019.
We also found the viral image on the website of Alamy stock photo collection, which mentioned that it was taken on 3 February 2019 ahead of the general elections.
We conducted a reverse image search on the second viral photo and found that the image was from a Left front rally organised in 2014. The same image was published on 11 February 2014 on the website of ‘World Federation of Trade Unions’ with a caption that read, “Picture of Rally in Brigade Parade Ground, at Kolkata.”
On comparing the two images, we found that they were from the same event.
More images from the same location were found on ProKerala’s website. The images, attributed to IANS, were also posted in February 2014.
Evidently, old images from Left Front rallies were shared to falsely claim that they were from PM Modi’s rally in Kolkata. However, it is to be noted that a large crowd did gather for PM Modi’s address at Brigade Parade Ground on Sunday.
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