In the recently held 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the campaign of the BJP party also had a bulldozer theme. Bulldozer has gained prominence so much so that Yogi Adityanath earned a new sobriquet of ‘bulldozer baba’. It is in this context, that a social media post accompanying the image of a JCB bulldozer razing a construction is being widely shared with the claim that the image shows a recent demolition of an illegally constructed dargah on Govardhan Parikrama road by the Yogi government. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: A recent image showing Yogi government razing off an illegal dargah with the help of a JCB bulldozer.
Fact: The image is at least four years old and is available on the internet since 2018. There are some old reports of Uttar Pradesh government taking up the beautification of the Govardhan Parikrama area. However, we could not independently verify if the viral image is related to those beautification works. However the presence of the image on internet establishes that it does not show any recent activity. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
We could not find any recent reports of the Yogi government razing off any illegal encroachments near the Govardhan Parikrama Marg area. If the Yogi government has indeed taken up any such action lately, the media would have reported it. However, we could not find such reports.
Moreover, the viral image does not show any recent demolition since the image is available on the internet at least since November 2018. Reverse image search of the viral photo yielded multiple 2020 social media posts (here, here & here) that shared the same image, attributing it to Yogi Adityanath. Thus, these old posts prove that the image is not related to any recent demolition activity.
Further search yielded us a few old reports of the Uttar Pradesh government taking up the beautification work of the Govardhan Parikrama (here, here, here & here). However, we could not independently verify whether the viral image is related to any such activity.
To sum it up, an old image of bulldozer razing off a construction is passed off as recent, attributing it to Yogi Adityanath.
