Fact Check: No, This Picture of Shashi Tharoor Is Not From ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra'

The original picture was uploaded on his official Twitter handle on 22 August 2019.

A picture of Thiruvananthapuram's Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, sitting with girls, is being widely shared to claim that the picture is from the Congress party's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'. In a sarcastic remark, users have shared the photo and written "he is always busy."

The claim comes as Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, are undertaking a 20-25 kilometres-long march every day with the aim of mobilising masses throughout the nation.

The march, which is currently passing through Kerala, started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on 7 September and is scheduled to end in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.

However, we found that Tharoor's photo is old. The original picture, uploaded on Tharoor's official Twitter handle, dates back to August 2019. It was taken during his annual lecture at the Bucerius Summer School on 'Global Governance'.

CLAIM

The claim suggests that the picture is recent and shows Tharoor interacting with girls during the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'. The viral post was uploaded with a caption in Hindi, "भारत जोड़ो यात्रा में केरल से पहली तस्वीर गुरु जी ने डाली है| गुरूजी हमेशा कि तरह व्यस्त हैं |"

(Translation: Guruji has put the first picture from Kerala's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'. Guruji is busy as always.)

The post is being widely shared by social media users.

Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, here, and here.

IS THE PICTURE RECENT?

We performed a reverse image search on the photo using the Google search engine. This led us to the official Twitter handle of Shashi Tharoor where we came across the same image.

The tweet was uploaded on 22 August 2019 and mentioned that the pictures were from his annual lecture at the Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance.

My annual lecture at the @BSSZEITStiftung this year was on a pet theme, "multi-alignment in a networked world". It's always a pleasure to interact w/some of the brightest young minds from around the world on issues of global governance,as i've done since 2001.(pix ©Zeit-Stiftung) pic.twitter.com/NwgAJqpDa9

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 22, 2019

Since the start of the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', several false claims related to Rahul Gandhi and the party have been shared to mock the yatra. Here are some of the claims that Team WebQoof has debunked in the past.

1. A picture of Rahul Gandhi with Miva Jolly was falsely shared by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders with the claim that he was hugging Amulya Leona, the girl who raised 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans on stage in the presence of Asaduddin Owaisi in 2020.

2. An old photo of Gandhi sitting with his niece, Miraya Vadra, was falsely shared as him playing with 'young girls'.

3. Luxurious interiors of a bus were shared to falsely link it with the containers used by the Congress during the yatra.

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