Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed public rallies in Jalore and Banswara, Rajasthan, on 21 April 2024, as part of the BJP’s political campaign for the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. Amidst this event, several posts (here, here, & here), accompanied by a video showing a massive crowd, are being widely shared across social media platforms. The claim accompanying these posts is that the video shows the scene at the meeting site before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Jalore, Rajasthan. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video showing a massive crowd at PM Narendra Modi’s recent rally in Jalore on 21 April 2024.
Fact: This viral video dates back to 2019 and shows visuals of a Congress rally held in Jalore, Rajasthan, in April 2019. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we skimmed through the comment sections of several viral posts on X (Twitter) carrying these viral visuals, we found multiple users pointing out that the video dates back to 2019 and shows visuals of a Congress rally in Ramseen, Jalore. Here is the link to one such comment (archive link). Another comment stating that the video shows a Congress rally held in Ramseen in 2019 can be seen here (archive link).
Taking a cue from this, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet. This search led us to a video (archive link) posted on Facebook containing the same visuals as in the viral video, which was shared on 25 April 2019. The video caption reads: “This video is not from anywhere else; in Rajasthan, there is a huge crowd in the public meeting of Lok Sabha Congress campaign Rahul Gandhi, Ashok Gehlot, and Sachin Pilot in Ramseen of Jalore district.” (translated from Hindi to English)
Upon further search, we also found a video (archive link) that was mentioned in the comments of one of the viral posts on the YouTube channel named ‘SVG CSO’ on 26 April 2019, with the caption “Ramseen (Jalore) Congress Meeting (25/04/2019)”. (translated from Hindi to English)
To learn more about this video and the Congress rally in Ramseen held in 2019, we conducted a relevant keyword search and found that Rahul Gandhi held a rally in Jalore on 25 April 2019 (here & here). Subsequently, we also found a video (archive link) posted on the official Instagram handle of the Congress party, where a massive crowd was seen gathered. It was shared on 27 April 2019, with a caption that said, “It was a sight to behold as lakhs of people came to see and listen to Congress President @rahulgandhi at the mega rally at Jalore, Rajasthan.” Upon comparing the visuals of the viral video with the Instagram video, we can observe identical locations and structures in both videos. Based on this information, it is evident that the viral video is old and does not show visuals of PM Modi’s recent rally held in Jalore, Rajasthan.
To sum up, this viral video dates back to 2019 and does not show the visuals of PM Modi’s recent rally in Rajasthan’s Jalore.
