Did India Today Magazine Publish Cover Stories Targeting Rahul Gandhi? No!

These covers have been fabricated to mislead the viewers.

Fact-Check | The images have been edited and are being shared with a false claim.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A set of two magazines purportedly published by India Today is going viral to claim that the media organisation recently published them to take a dig at Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.

• These claims come after the Congress party's (and its allies) defeat in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections.

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

The post had gained over 40 thousand views on the platform. More archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.

What are the facts?: The images have been edited to make the viral claims. There is no evidence to prove that India Today published these magazine covers.

How did we find that out?: We went through the official website of India Today Magazine and searched for the viral covers under the 'magazine' section.

• Team WebQoof looked at the covers of the upcoming as well as the previous editions of the media organisation's magazine.

• It should be noted that the Maharashtra assembly elections was declared on 23 November. So, the logical date to publish something about Congress' defeat would have been 25 November.

• However, we did not find any mention of Gandhi on the last seven covers of the magazine.

• The following cover that will come out on 2 December also does not carry Gandhi's image or anything related to elections.

The covers of the magazine did not publish anything on Rahul Gandhi.

(Source: India Today/Screenshot)

Conclusion: It is clear that these covers are fake and were not published by India Today.

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