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No, Man Who Slapped Hardik Patel Was Not Seen With Rahul Gandhi

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  

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A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
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CLAIM

A viral post claiming that the attack on Hardik Patel, on Friday, 19 April, was scripted by the Congress is doing the rounds on social media.

The post juxtaposed a picture of the attacker slapping Patel with a picture of Rahul Gandhi purportedly with the same attacker.

The two pictures are shared with a caption that states that the slap incident was scripted and called Hardik ‘the Kejriwal of Gujarat.’

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
The comparison is made between the two pictures alleging that the attacker is a affiliated to Congress. 
(Photo: Screenshot from Twitter )
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The same post was also shared by several users and pages on Facebook, including by @tiktokcamel, whose post was shared more than 1,200 times and had acquired more than 250 reactions at the time of writing this piece.

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
The post has gone viral on Facebook
(Photo: Screenshot from Facebook)
A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
The picture edit is being widely shared on Facebook with a similar narrative 
(Photo: Screenshot from Facebook)

TRUE OR FALSE ?

The Quint, on cropping the first image in the post and conducting a reverse image search, found out that the two images are not of the same person.

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
The results found by conducting the reverse image search 
(Photo: Screenshot from Yandex.com)

A similar image was found, which was traced back to NDTV’s photo archives of Rahul Gandhi’s Gujarat visit. The original image is from 23 December 2017.

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
A visually similar image shows that the picture is taken on December 2017 
(Photo: Screenshot from NDTV)

On cropping the image further and reverse searching the man seen behind Rahul Gandhi, The Quint ascertained that he is, in fact, Anurgrah Narayan Singh, a Congress elected MLA from Allahabad North, Uttar Pradesh.

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
The man in the picture is recognised as Anugrah Narayan Singh, MLA from UP.
(Photo: Screenshot from the official website for UP Legislative Assembly )
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On the other hand, the man who slapped Hardik Patel, seen in the video of the incident that has since gone viral, was identified as Tarun Gajjar.

A viral post alleges that the man who slapped Hardik Patel is from Congress.  
The attacker has been identified as Tarun Gajjar.
(Photo: Screenshot from an article by the Quint

Clearly, the men shown in the two images are not the same, as the viral post alleges. The post makes a false claim in order to promote a political agenda, which might influence voters during the crucial 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9910181818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)

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