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