Old images shared as staged photoshoot of farmers protesting against the new farm legislation - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
December 17, 2020
A collage with the images of farmers is shared on social media claiming these as the photoshoot pictures of farmers doing protests against the new farm legislation. In the collage, we can see a photo of farmers along with Rahul Gandhi. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Staged photoshoot images of farmers protesting against the new farm legislation.
Fact:  Photo of Rahul Gandhi with farmers was captured during Tamil Nadu farmers protest at Jantar Mantar during 2017. The other photos shared in the post are also the old ones. These photos have nothing to do with the ongoing farmers’ protest against the new farm legislation. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the first photo shared in the post, a similar photo was found in an article published by ‘The Asian Age’ news website on ‘01 April 2017’. In the article, it is mentioned as the photo of Rahul Gandhi meeting Tamil Nadu farmers at Jantar Mantar during 2017. Indian National Congress had also shared the live video of Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Tamil Nadu farmers on ‘31 March 2017’ on YouTube. Tamil Nadu farmers organised this protest in demand for loan waiver and compensation for their crop failure.
On searching for the other photos shared in the post, similar photos were found in a tweet posted by Tamil Nadu BJP spokesperson SJ Suryah on ‘23 April 2017’. In the tweet, he mentions them as related to the photoshoot of farmers by ‘India Today’ news channel. We could not ascertain the exact details about these photos. But, it can be concluded that these photos are old ones.
To sum it up, old images shared as the photoshoot images of farmers doing protest against the new farm legislation.