Lighthouse Journalism found an image being widely shared on the social media handles. The image showcased a rally with a banner stating ‘No Vote to BJP’. The hashtag used along with the post was, ‘Tamilnadu_Rejects_BJP’, prompting that the image is from Tamil Nadu. During the investigation we found that the image shared was old and from Kolkata, not from Tamil Nadu.
Claim:
X user Dr Gaurav Kumar shared the viral image on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing the same picture claiming it to be recent.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by running a reverse image search on the image.
We found the image in an article uploaded on the website of India Today. The article was uploaded under the tag, ‘West Bengal Assembly Polls 2021’. The article was titled: ‘No vote to BJP’: Activists raise slogans during protest rally ahead of West Bengal assembly polls
The picture was credited to: Press Trust of India (PTI)
We also found the image in an article in the National Herald.
We also found the image on a website of groundreport.in
We also found a similar image on the stock images website, ‘shutterstock‘.
The caption mentioned: Students and Citizen forum took out a protest rally against BJP and RSS in Kolkata , in demand of “No vote to BJP” in the upcoming West Bengal Assembly election , in Kolkata , India , on 10 March , 2021.
Conclusion: Old picture from a rally in West Bengal in the year 2021 recirculates as recent claiming to be from Tamil Nadu. Viral claim is false.
