Recently, a photograph of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi is making the rounds on social media. In the picture, Rahul Gandhi is seen wearing a railway porter’s (coolie) badge with the number 420, often associated with fraudulence in Indian pop culture. This article fact-checks the claim related to the photograph.
Claim: Rahul Gandhi wore a coolie badge with the number 420.
Fact: The original picture from Rahul Gandhi’s Instagram page reveals that he wore a coolie badge with the number 756 and not 420 as claimed. Hence, the claim in the post is False.
A reverse image search was performed on the internet to authenticate the viral picture. The search led to Rahul Gandhi’s official Instagram page, where an identical photo was found.
However, the number on the badge was clearly 756, not 420, as shown in the viral photo.
Further, to understand more about this incident, we explored the context of this photograph. It was taken when Rahul Gandhi met with railway porters at the Anand Vihar railway station (here and here), New Delhi, on 21 September 2023. He was seen wearing the coolie shirt and badge as a symbol of solidarity with the workers.
To further verify this, we found an interview of the coolie who had tied the badge on Rahul. He confirmed that the badge number was 756.
To sum up, the photograph being shared on social media is a doctored version of the original. Rahul Gandhi did wear a coolie badge, but it carried the number 756, not 420.
