A video showing Congress leaders, namely Rahul Gandhi, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, and former Minister of State Bharat Solanki, at a festive pandal, is being widely shared on social media.
The claim states that that Gandhi refused to perform aarti, questioning his reasons for not participating in a Hindu ritual.
CLAIM
Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit shared the video on his verified Twitter account, writing in Hindi, what loosely translates to, "A sacred thread wearing Rahul Gandhi refusing to perform aarti! The reason why is clear!"
An archive of this tweet can be accessed here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND
Using InVID, a video verification extension on Google Chrome, we divided the viral video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search on some of them.
On Yandex, the results showed us a tweet, by Congress leader and former Minister of State (MoS) for Drinking Water and Sanitation Bharat Solanki, dated 27 September 2017.
The photos shared showed Rahul Gandhi, Bharat Solanki, and Ashok Gehlot, and the caption mentioned ending their day with "Aarti & blessings of Ambe Maa at Navratri Pandal, Neel City, Rajkot (sic)."
We saw that the pictures shared on Solanki's verified account were from the same event as the viral video. Both Solanki's and Gandhi's outfits matched in both the photos.
The decorations in both photos are identical.
(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)
In one of these photos, Gandhi can be seen holding the aarti in his hands.
Taking a cue from Solanki's tweet, we looked for more visuals from the event. This search led us to a tweet shared by Gehlot, which, too, carried similar pictures.
Rahul Gandhi, too, had shared photos from the event on his verified profile.
We found similar visuals on news agency ANI's Twitter account too.
News reports from 2017 mentioned that Gandhi had visited Rajkot. It also said that he had visited five temples and performed aartis at two venues, in Rajkot and Jamnagar in a span of three days.
Clearly, an old video of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Bharat Solanki, and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot at Navratri celebrations in Gujarat's Rajkot is being shared to claim that Gandhi refused to perform aarti.
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