An image from Bhartiya Janata Party’s 35th foundation day ceremony in 2015 is being shared with the false claim that it shows how poll-bound state of Kerala welcomed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who addressed a rally on Sunday, 21 February.
CLAIM
BJP’s Manish Singh shared the image of a human flag in the shape of a lotus with the claim that it is from Yogi Adityanath’s rally held on Sunday.
The image saw its widespread presence on Twitter and Facebook with the same claim.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On doing a reverse search of the viral image, we came across a Livemint article published in 2015 titled, ‘BJP to embark on major outreach programme’.
The article carried a picture showing the visual shot from a slightly different angle and the caption along with the image read: “BJP workers made party’s huge symbol (lotus) during the BJP foundation day celebration in Ahmedabad on Monday. (sic)”
With the help of a keyword search, we came across an Indian Express article from April 2015 that carried an image same as the viral one. The image was credited to Express photographer Bhupendra Rana.
The Quint, too, carried visuals of the human flag from the 2015 event when nearly 30,000 party workers formed the ‘largest’ human flag in the Dahod region of Gujarat to mark the celebration of Bharatiya Janata Party’s 35th foundation day.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted the visual of the said ceremony back in April 2015.
Evidently, an old image of BJP workers forming a human flag to mark the celebration of the party’s 35th foundation day was falsely linked to Yogi Adityanath’s recent Kerala rally.
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