Recently, on 30 July 2024, multiple landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains hit various places in Kerala’s hill district of Wayanad, killing hundreds of people, injuring several others, and leaving many missing (here, here, here, here, & here). On 10 August 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad and met with the victims in the hospital. In this context, a set of pictures of PM Modi meeting the Wayanad landslide victims is being widely shared across social media platforms, claiming that PM Modi has visited Wayanad but Rahul Gandhi, who won the Wayanad parliamentary seat, has not reached Wayanad yet (here, here, here, & here). In this article, we fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Rahul Gandhi did not visit the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad and did not meet with the victims of the Wayanad landslides.
Fact: Rahul Gandhi visited the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad and met with the victims. According to reports, on 01 August and 02 August 2024, Rahul Gandhi, along with his sister and Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, visited the landslide affected areas in Wayanad and met with the victims. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, previously represented the Wayanad parliamentary constituency. In the 2024 Lok Sabha general elections, he contested and won both the Wayanad seat in Kerala and the Rae Bareli seat in Uttar Pradesh. He resigned from the Wayanad seat, and his resignation was accepted on 18 June 2024 (here, here). According to the Representation of the People Act of 1951, if a candidate wins from two seats, they must resign from one within 14 days of the election.
To verify the viral claim, we conducted a Google search using relevant keywords. This search led to multiple news reports (here, here, here, here, & here) stating that on 01 August 2024, Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, along with his sister and Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, visited the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad and met with the victims.
We also found videos and photos of Rahul Gandhi’s Wayanad visit on his official Instagram account and YouTube channel (here, here). The Congress party’s official X (formerly Twitter) handle also posted photos of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi’s visit to the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad. During their two-day visit to Wayanad after landslides, Rahul and Priyanka assessed the landslide-affected areas and met with the victims.
Further, the viral pictures are from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad on 10 August 2024, where he met with the victims at relief camps and in the hospital (here, here, here, and here).
To sum up, Rahul Gandhi visited the landslide-affected areas in Wayanad and met with the victims, on 01 August and 02 August 2024.
