Amidst the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a post featuring a video showing an aerial view of a large gathering of people in an open ground is being widely shared across social media platforms (here, here, & here). The post claims that the video shows the huge crowd that gathered for a recent election campaign meeting of Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post
Claim: Visuals of a huge crowd that gathered at a recent election campaign meeting of Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi.
Fact: This viral video shows visuals of a recent election rally held on 21 May 2024, by PM Modi in Maharajganj, Bihar. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim and gather more information about the video, we conducted a Google reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video. This search led us to a similar video(archived link) uploaded on the official X (Twitter) account of Prime Minister Modi on 21 May 2024, with the caption: “The huge crowd in Maharajganj shows that BJP-NDA in Bihar is receiving unprecedented blessings from my family members here”. (translated from Hindi to English). According to this post, the visuals in the video show an election rally held by the BJP-led NDA in Maharajganj, Bihar.
This video is also shared on the official X(Twitter) account of the BJP and the official Instagram accounts of PM Modi and Bihar state BJP.
Using relevant keyword searches, we found several news reports (here, here, here & here) regarding the election rally held in Bihar on 21 May 2024. According to these reports, PM Modi addressed election rallies in Motihari and Maharajganj, Bihar on 21 May 2024. A large crowd of supporters gathered at these meetings to listen to PM Modi. Additional news reports about PM Modi’s election rally can be seen here and here. From all this information, it is evident that the viral video shows visuals of an election rally held by PM Modi in Bihar on 21 May 2024.
To sum up, the video of PM Modi’s recent election rally in Bihar’s Maharajganj is being falsely shared as visuals of Rahul Gandhi’s rally.
This story was originally published by Factly and republished by OrissaPOST as part of the Shakti Collective.
