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Telangana Rashtra Samithi's (TRS) social media convener Y Sathish Reddy shared a photograph showing a group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to take a dig at the party.
The photo shows Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, Begusarai MP Giriraj Singh, and Lok Sabha MP SS Ahluwalia, among others, seated together.
Reddy claimed that the party's leaders were "partying in Goa and chilling out with their friends," while TRS leaders were working to help people affected by floods in Telangana.
However, the claim is false. The photograph shows BJP leaders at a parliamentary party meeting held in Delhi on 16 July. Moreover, state BJP leaders such as MPs Arvind Dharmapuri and Bandi Sanjay Kumar also visited the flood-affected areas while other party members distributed relief materials aid.
CLAIM
TRS' social media convener Y Satish Reddy shared the photograph in question, juxtaposing it with TRS leaders on the ground in Telangana and claimed that BJP leaders were "partying in Goa" while the former were working for the people.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Using a simple reverse image search on Google led us to the same photograph in a tweet shared by Union Minister for Culture, Tourism and Development of North Eastern Region G Kishan Reddy.
Reddy shared the photograph on 16 July 2022, with the text "With Hon'ble Ministerial and MP colleagues Shri @girirajsinghbjp ji, Shri @KailashBaytu ji, Shri @SSAhluwalia ji at the @BJP4India Parliamentary party meeting in Delhi (sic)."
Next, we looked for more visuals of the event and found the same group seated in the background of a photo shared by BJP MP Pratap Simha on Twitter.
We noticed at least three leaders sitting in the same order as the photo in the claim, with a fire extinguisher mounted to the wall in the background.
DID ANY BJP LEADERS VISIT THE FLOOD-AFFECTED AREAS?
Next, we checked whether any BJP leaders had visited flood-affected areas or met with people on the ground for flood relief, and found many visuals.
BJP MP from Nizamabad Arvind Dharmapuri visited a village that experiences floods every year, noting that the check dam had broken again and contributed to flooding.
BJP Telangana President Bandi Sanjay Kumar met with people in his constituency (Karimnagar) to enquire about people's condition and caution them about excessive rains.
BJP Telangana spokesperson Rakesh Reddy Angula also went to flood rehabilitation centres and distributed food to the people staying there.
We then checked whether the Union government had provided any assistance to Telangana during the floods, and found a report by The Hindu which mentioned that BJP MLAs in Telangana had sought assistance to deal with the floods.
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER THREE PICTURES?
We checked the other three photos shared by Y Satish Reddy that showed TRS leaders visiting flood-hit areas in the state.
We found regional language reports carrying the same photos.
The first photo of two women and flooded land shows Telangana's Women and Child Welfare minister Satyavathi Rathod visiting Bhupalapally district, according to NTV Telugu.
The second photo shows Transport minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar meeting people from Khammam, his constituency, reported ABP Telugu. TRS' working president K T Rama Rao also shared the same photo on his verified Twitter account.
We found the last photograph in a report by The Hans India, which noted that it showed TRS leaders in flood-affected Karimnagar district.
Telangana received a flash flood risk warning by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on 11 July, with a few places receiving heavy rainfall warnings.
In the following days, the northern part of the state saw severe flooding, as incessant rains triggered by a cloudburst and the Godavari overflowing inundated parts of the state. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced an instant relief package of Rs 10,000 to each family that had been dislocated by the floods.
Clearly, the photo doesn't show BJP leaders relaxing and partying in Goa, but was taken at Delhi during the party's parliamentary meeting.
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