A screenshot (here, here and here) of a tweet allegedly showing crores of people gathering at a rally in support of Arvind Kejriwal, who is in judicial custody regarding a liquor policy case, is currently trending on social media platforms. The tweet, made by a user named ‘The Skin Doctor’, includes two photos of enormous gathering of people. This article aims to fact-check the validity of the claim.
Claim: These photos show visuals of five crore people who attended a rally in Nainital to support Arvind Kejriwal.
Fact: The photos used in the tweet were taken in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2022, during a celebration parade after Argentina’s national team won the FIFA World Cup. The tweet from ‘The Skin Doctor’ to which the viral screenshot belongs was identified as satire by X (formerly Twitter). Therefore, the claim made in the post is False.
To begin the fact-checking process, we first examined the original tweet (archived post) made by ‘The Skin Doctor.’ The tweet had been tagged as satire by X (formerly known as Twitter), negating the validity of its claims.
To further investigate, we conducted an image reverse search of the photos included in the tweet. The search results showed (here, here and here) that these images were from 2022 and were taken in Buenos Aires, Argentina, not Nainital, India. The crowds had gathered to celebrate Argentina’s victory in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, not in support of Arvind Kejriwal.
While it’s true that the Aam Aadmi Party and the I.N.D.I.A bloc have protested against Kejriwal’s arrest, and these protests have seen significant turnout (here and here), these images are unrelated.
To sum up, the claim disseminated through the tweet that five crore people rallied in support of Arvind Kejriwal in Nainital is False. The images used in the tweet were taken at a different event in Argentina, and the tweet itself was tagged as satire.
