On 17 August 2025, Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, launched the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Sasaram, Bihar, a 16-day march covering over 1,300 km across more than 20 districts of the state. The march was launched against the backdrop of the Congress’s accusations of “vote chori” against the ECI and the INDIA Bloc’s opposition to the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar. The campaign will conclude with a rally at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on 01 September 2025 (here, here, and here).
In this context, a video showing a huge crowd parading is circulating on social media (here, here, and here), with claims that it depicts the first day of the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar, featuring Rahul Gandhi. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The video shows the first day of the 2025 ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar.
Fact: The video predates the 2025 ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ and is unrelated to it. It was recorded during Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Raichur, Karnataka, in October 2022 and shared by Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar. The location is identified as Satyanath Colony Road in Raichur. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led us to multiple social media posts (here, here) from October 2022, confirming that the video predates the 2025 ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ and is unrelated to it. These posts claimed that the video was from the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Raichur, Karnataka.
We then searched on Google using relevant keywords and found that the same video was posted on the official Instagram account of Congress leader and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on 22 October 2022. The post included the hashtag ‘Bharat Aikyata Yatra’ and mentioned Raichur as the location.
We also found an X post by Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar dated 10 September 2022 stating that, “The name of the Bharat Jodo Yatra will be Bharat Ekta Yatra for Karnataka, which will start from Chamarajanagar on September 30 and end in Raichur.” According to reports (here, here), on 21 October 2022, Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ entered Raichur on that day.
In a Facebook post dated 22 October 2022, Rahul Gandhi shared pictures from the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Raichur, where DK Shivakumar is seen alongside him wearing a green T-shirt. A similar visual appears in the viral video, showing a man in a green T-shirt with a cloth tied around his head walking with Rahul Gandhi. We confirmed that this person is Deputy CM DK Shivakumar. The comparison is shown below.
In one of the pictures shared by Rahul Gandhi on Facebook, the name ‘Rock Cafe Restaurant’ is visible in the background. Using this as a clue, we traced the location of the viral video on Google Maps and identified it as Satyanath Colony Road in Raichur. The buildings in the viral video match those seen on Street View, and a comparison can be seen below.
To sum up, an October 2022 ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ video from Raichur is falsely shared as the first day of the 2025 ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar.
