On 16 May, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met a few migrant labourers near the Sukhdev Vihar flyover in Delhi. He interacted with the workers and also arranged for their travel, a move most politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dubbed as a photo-op.
Now, several images are being shared on social media with a claim that Gandhi’s meeting with the migrants was staged as the labourers who can be seen interacting with the former Congress president are actually members of the Congress party.
However, the claim is false and misleading. The people in the pictures are indeed migrants from Haryana who were homebound to Jhansi and not Congress party members.
THE CLAIM
A set of images showing migrant workers who interacted with Gandhi, sitting in a car, is being shared with a message that these migrants are Congress workers who helped him stage an interaction.
Calling the entire episode a scam in the name of migrants, social media users alleged that, “Congress workers were dressed as migrants and brought to the location in a car.”
WHAT WE FOUND
We checked the Twitter handle of Indian National Congress and found images from Gandhi’s interaction with the migrants and were able to identify the two people in question.
According to reports by The Times of India and Free Press Journal, after this interaction, Gandhi facilitated cars for travel of 25 migrants back home.
We also found a tweet by news agency ANI, which mentioned that the Congress leader arranged for vehicles to take migrants back home. The tweet was supported by images of migrants sitting in a car. In one of the images, the same woman and man who are being claimed to be Congress workers can be spotted.
In a video uploaded by India TV, the migrants can be seen sitting inside the cars arranged by Congress.
One minute and thirty-nine seconds into the video, the two people can be seen entering the car.
Evidently, images of migrant workers sitting inside cars to go back home after interaction with Gandhi, are being shared with misleading claims.
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