An image is being shared on Facebook by many users claiming that huge crowds of over 10 lakh have attended the Modi’s public meeting at Siliguri. In the image, it can be seen that Modi and Shah are sitting on the stage and looking at the huge crowd before them. Let’s try to check the authenticity of the image posted on Facebook
Claim: Massive crowd of over 10 lakh at Modi’s Siliguri meeting
Fact: The image is photoshopped. The original photo of was not taken at the Siliguri meeting, but, in 2017, at the swearing-in ceremony of the new government in Himachal Pradesh. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE
When searched for “Modi’s Siliguri Meeting” on Google, photos of the Siliguri meeting can be found on Modi’s official Twitter account. From the photos, it can be found that the above image was not taken at that meeting as Modi was wearing a white kurta in the Siliguri meeting, instead of the brown one shown in the image.
To find out the details of the picture posted on Facebook, the picture is run through Google Reverse Image Search. The original photo was found in the search results, so the image posted on Facebook is photoshopped. But the details of the original photo were not found.
Then, the original photo is run through Yandex Reverse Image Search. In the search results, a link to a Twitter post with similar images posted by the official BJP Twitter account can be found. The tweet reads: “Swearing-in ceremony of the new government of Himachal Pradesh.” In the photo, it can be seen that Modi was wearing a brown kurta (similar to the image posted on Facebook) and the huge flag was present in the crowd (similar to the original photo). So, it can be concluded that the original photo that is photoshopped was taken in 2017 at the swearing-in ceremony of the Himachal Pradesh government.
Finally, the photo was not taken at the Siliguri meeting and the image is photoshopped.
