No, the Image Doesn’t Show Congress Workers Feeding Mia Khalifa

The original image is more than a decade old and shows Congress workers celebrating Rahul Gandhi’s birthday.

A morphed photo of media personality Mia Khalifa in place of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s portrait is being shared to insinuate that Congress workers fed cake to her poster after she spoke in support of the farmers protest, which has now entered its third month.

This comes in the backdrop of the controversy which erupted after several international personalities, including pop singer Rihanna, Kamala Harris’ niece Meena Harris, climate activist Greta Thunberg, tweeted in support of the farmers.

CLAIM

The claim has been shared widely on Twitter and Facebook. One of the tweets by a user called Major Surendra Poonia, who has often been called out for sharing misinformation, read, “राहुल जी के कांग्रेसी ! फिर कहते हैं EVM हैक हो गई ....”

[Translation: Rahul ji’s Congress. Then they say that EVM has been hacked.]

Another user shared the same photograph with a claim mocking Congress leader and late former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The same has been shared by several users on Facebook.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

On conducting a reverse image search, we came across a picture on Getty Images from June 2007, which showed Congress workers celebrating Rahul Gandhi’s 37th birthday.

A quick comparison of the two pictures clearly shows that the picture of Mia Khalifa, which is now being circulated, has been morphed on top of Gandhi’s face. You can notice several similarities in the two pictures. One of the most prominent being – the same party workers in the background.

The image on Getty, which has been credited to AFP photographer Raveendran, states that Indian Youth Congress supporters celebrated Gandhi’s birthday in front of then Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s residence in Delhi.

Clearly, the image has been morphed to falsely claim that Congress workers were feeding cake to Khalifa’s portrait. A similar narrative was created using a photoshopped image of singer Rihanna to claim that she was posing with a Pakistani flag.

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