2019 video of Pawan Kalyan dining at a Jana Sena candidate’s home is falsely shared as a 2025 Iftar gathering

A video and photo (here, here, here, here and here) going viral on social media shows Jana Sena Party founder and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan having a meal dressed in Muslim attire and surrounded by Muslims. The claim suggests that he attended an Iftar party (breaking of the fast) in the context of Ramzan, which began on March 2 this year. Let’s verify the truth behind this video.

The archived post can be found here.

Claim: The viral video shows that Jana Sena Party chief and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan attended an Iftar party in 2025, wearing Muslim attire.

Fact: The video is from March 2019, during Pawan Kalyan’s election campaign in Guntur, where he visited Jana Sena MLA candidate Sheikh Zia Ur Rehman’s house and had lunch with his family. Reports confirm that Ramzan in 2019 occurred between May and June, proving that the event had no connection to any Iftar party. Hence, the claim is FALSE.

To verify the claim, we conducted a reverse image search on Google, which led us to The Hans India website. The site features a photo gallery showing the same image along with multiple other photos from the incident. The gallery is captioned “Pawan Kalyan enjoys Quran, biryani during election campaign in Guntur” and was uploaded on 25 March 2019. The images show an elderly woman holding and reading the Quran.

We also found a YouTube video of the incident, reported by Mango News on 26 March 2019. The video is titled “Pawan Kalyan Eats Biryani At Jana Sena MLA Candidate House In Guntur | AP Elections 2019 | Mango News.” In the footage, Pawan Kalyan is seen being served food by the Jana Sena MLA candidate and his family. They are interacting, and at one point, he is seen taking blessings from an elderly woman.

Further research led us to a report by The Hans India, which confirms that the incident took place during the 2019 general election campaign. On that day, Pawan Kalyan visited the house of Jana Sena MLA candidate Sheikh Zia Ur Rehman in the Guntur East Assembly constituency. During the visit, Rehman’s mother read verses from the Quran, and Pawan Kalyan listened with interest. A special lunch was arranged, where he sat on the floor with Rehman’s family and other leaders, enjoying biryani while wearing a traditional Muslim cap.

A quick Google search confirms that Ramzan in 2019 occurred between May and June, whereas the incident took place in March 2019. This clearly indicates that the event had no connection to any Iftar party and was falsely linked to Ramzan 2025.

To sum up, a 2019 video of Pawan Kalyan having food at the home of a Jana Sena candidate was falsely shared as a recent Iftar gathering during Ramzan 2025.