New Delhi:
With the 2024 Lok Sabha elections scheduled to take place in multiple phases from April 19 to June 1, 2024, the leaders of the opposition bloc INDIA organized a ‘Loktantra Bachao’ rally at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi on March 31, 2024. This meeting follows the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money laundering case related to Delhi’s liquor policy.
What is the claim?
In this backdrop, numerous aerial photographs have emerged, reportedly showing huge crowds gathering in Delhi in support of Arvind Kejriwal during the ‘Loktantra Bachao Rally’ organized by the Opposition bloc.
One such image, depicting a sizeable group of individuals dressed in yellow attire, has been circulated as evidence of Kejriwal’s support. The accompanying Hindi captions claim, after translation: “The streets of Delhi are full of Kejriwal supporters”, accompanied by the hashtag #IndiaWithKejriwal.
At the time of writing, one such post with the viral image had been viewed more than 424,000 times. Archived versions of this post and others like it can be found here, hereAnd here.
Another aerial photo of a sizable crowd has gained viral attention, claiming to be a recent snapshot of the gathering at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi. Captions of this image claim, “Scenes from today at the Ramlila Maidan Alliance Rally. Modi toh giyo #INDIAAlliance.”
One such post sharing the viral image had been viewed 407,000 times at the time of writing. Archived and similar versions of the message can be viewed hereAnd here.
However, the first photo can be traced back to an African event. Similarly, another image purportedly from the recent Delhi rally is an old photo from West Bengal dating back to 2019.
What are the facts?
Figure 1
After performing a reverse image search of the first image, it was discovered that it came from the official account of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopiaposted on January 23, 2022. The caption of the post reveals that the image depicts Africa’s largest running competition, the ‘Great Ethiopian Run’, an annual road running event in Ethiopia.
#GreatEthiopianRun
The largest running event in the Netherlands #Africa
Join us next time and have fun! pic.twitter.com/UsjRkshGpL— The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of #Ethiopia 🇪🇹 (@mfaethiopia) January 23, 2022
Additionally, we discovered a similar image uploaded to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Achievement Funds website. The accompanying description read: “Haile Gebreselassie kicks off the Great Ethiopian Run with the slogan ‘We can end poverty by 2015.'” This image, captured from a different angle, showed a signboard with the words “Abyssinia Springs.”
Even in May 2022, this exact image resurfaced, falsely representing a gathering of Chennai Super Kings fans during the 2023 IPL final, among other unrelated images. In a fact-check, Logically Facts found that footage from events held in Spain, Africa and Thailand in different years was misrepresented as footage of CSK fans at the IPL final.
Image 2
A reverse image search led us to a 2019 news article from People’s Democracy, an English weekly of the Communist Party of India, with the viral image. The article reported that thousands of Left Party workers attended a Left Front-led rally at the Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata.
Moreover, a post by the CPI(M) West Bengal unit on of 2019. .
“You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop spring.”
A bird’s eye view of last year’s Birgade Rally #Kolkata#LalSalaamcomradepic.twitter.com/EmuvpqaiXI
— CPI(M) WEST BENGAL (@CPIM_WESTBENGAL) June 10, 2020
Rally during the 2019 Kolkata Brigade Parade
Reports published on websites such as Peoples Dispatch, Peoples Democracy and Social News in February 2019 revealed that thousands of workers of the Left party participated in the rally held on February 3, 2019 at the Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata. These reports highlighted that the meeting took place in opposition to the BJP-led government at the Center and the TMC-led government in the state.
It was reported that at this meeting, held in anticipation of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in India, a resolution was passed calling for the removal of the BJP and TMC governments from the state.
The verdict
Old and unrelated images of the 2022 Great Ethiopian Run in Africa and a rally held at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade ground on February 3, 2019 have been circulated with the false claim that they depict scenes from the ‘Loktantra Bachao’ rally of 2024, which reportedly showed images of Kejriwal supporters in Delhi. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.
This story was original published by Logical Factsand republished by WhatsNew2Day as part of the Shakti Collective.
