Fact Check: Image of massive crowd claiming to be of Jan Vishwas Rally in Patna is old and morphed
Image of massive crowd claiming to be of Jan Vishwas Rally in Patna is old and morphed
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is expected to soon announce the schedule for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Leaders from the INDIA bloc, like Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge from the Congress party, Tejashwi Yadav from the Rashtriya Janata Dal, and Akhilesh Yadav from the Samajwadi Party, gathered in Bihar's capital, Patna, for the Jan Vishwas Maha rally. Against this backdrop, social media users are posting a picture depicting a massive gathering, claiming that over 12 lakh people participated in the rally. The image is being shared with the claim that it was captured at Patna's Gandhi Maidan, where leaders of the INDIA Alliance gathered for the Jan Vishwas Maha Rally.
Fact Check:
The claim is misleading.
Gandhi Maidan is a historic ground in Patna, Bihar, situated near the banks of River Ganges. Users are claiming that it can accommodate a crowd of 12 lakh. However, we looked into its capacity and found an article by Times of India. According to a survey mentioned in the article, the total capacity of Gandhi Maidan is estimated to be around 2.75 Lakh people. Based on the information provided in the article and its sources, the reported number of attendees at Gandhi Maidan never surpassed more than 500,000 people.
After conducting a Google reverse image search, we found a post featuring the same image on X platform by Yadav dating back to 2017. The post was uploaded on August 27, 2017, with the caption, "No 'Face' will stand in front of Lalu's 'Base.' Come & count as much as you can in Gandhi Maidan, Patna #DeshBachao."
We found a post by the news agency ANI uploaded on X, showing pictures from the same rally. Moreover, these images differed from Lalu Yadav's photo. ANI purportedly captured these pictures from the same vantage point as Lalu Yadav's image.
Upon searching further, we came across reports from India TV in 2017 which suggested that the image might have been digitally altered. A report by the Hindi newspaper Jansatta on August 27, 2017, featured different images from the ones shared by Lalu Yadav.
We found an article by The Wire and saw pictures of the rally in Patna 2024, which was different from the viral one.
Hence, the claim is misleading. The viral image is old and morphed, not accurately depicting the recently conducted INDIA bloc rally in Bihar.