A video showing Amitabh Bachchan with Rahul Gandhi is going viral on social media platforms. It is being shared with the claim that Rahul Gandhi was caught with drugs in America, after which Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had him released. The post further claims that, following his release, Amitabh Bachchan brought Rahul Gandhi back from America, and the viral video purportedly shows these visuals of Amitabh Bachchan returning him to India (here, here, here, and here). In this article, we will fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: The video shows Amitabh Bachchan bringing Rahul Gandhi back from the US after he was released in a drug case.
Fact: This viral video shows Amitabh Bachchan with Rahul Gandhi at Delhi Airport following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. However, at the time of the assassination in Sriperumbudur, Amitabh Bachchan was visiting London, while Rahul Gandhi was in Boston, USA. Both happened to arrive at the airport around the same time. There is no evidence that Rahul Gandhi was ever arrested in a drug case in the US or any other country. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We conducted a relevant keyword search to determine whether Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was ever arrested in a drug case in the US or any other country. However, this search did not yield any credible reports supporting the viral claim. If Rahul Gandhi had indeed been arrested in such a drug case, as alleged in the post, it would have been widely reported by both national and international media.
We then conducted a reverse image search to gather more information about the viral video. This search led us to a video uploaded on the stock image website ‘Getty,’ which featured the same visuals as the viral video. According to the description of the Getty video, it shows Amitabh Bachchan with Rahul Gandhi at Delhi Airport following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991.
According to reports (here, here, here, and here), at the time of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in Sriperumbudur in May 1991, Amitabh Bachchan was in London, while Rahul Gandhi was in Boston, USA. Both happened to arrive at Delhi Airport around the same time. It should also be noted that the Indian Prime Minister at the time of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was Chandra Shekhar. It is also noteworthy that the Gandhi and Bachchan families have maintained good relations for many years (here, here).
Earlier, Factly published a fact-check debunking a fake newspaper clipping that went viral, which claimed that Rahul Gandhi was detained at Boston Airport for possession of banned drugs and unaccounted cash.
To sum it up, this viral video shows Amitabh Bachchan with Rahul Gandhi at Delhi Airport after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991.
