Unrelated old Photos and Videos are falsely linked to the ongoing farmers’ protest - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 5, 2021
A photo of the Bullock-carts rally organized by a group of people is being shared on social media claiming that the farmers’ protest against the new farm laws has reached out to every rural village in India. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of the Bullock-cart rally organized in support of farmers protesting against the new farm laws.
Fact: The photo in the post shows an old Bullock-cart rally organized by the Youth Congress leaders in Bhalaghat city of Madhya Pradesh. In 2018, Youth Congress & NSUI members organized this Bullock-cart rally to protest the rising fuel prices under the BJP government. This photo has nothing to do with the ongoing farmers’ protest. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, a similar photo was found in an article published by Patrika on 13 September 2018. Sharing this photo, Patrika reported that the Youth & NSUI members organized a Bullock-carts rally to protest the increasing fuel prices in the country. This rally took place on 13 September 2018 at Balaghat city in Madhya Pradesh.
On observing the picture carefully, one can see the slogans about rising fuel prices on the placards being carried by the protestors. A placard mentioned that the rally was conducted by the Bhalaghat district Youth Congress.
Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders shared the photos of this protest on their official Facebook page. News articles reporting the 2018 Bullock-carts rally organized at Balaghat city can be seen here and here. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the photo shared in the post is related to an old Bullock-cart rally organized by Balaghat Youth Congress members.
Amidst the ongoing farmers’ protest, a video (archived) is being shared on social media claiming it as the recent visuals of Jat community leaders, chanting pro-Narendra Modi slogans in Delhi. In our research, we found that the video shared in this post is an old one. Similar Videos with the same claim were shared on social media during January 2020. They can be seen here, here, and here.
BJP leader Khusum Khatri shared the better version of this video on her Facebook page on 04 January 2020. Sharing this video, Khusum Khatri mentioned ‘जुगजुगजियोनरेंद्रमोदी! #IndiaSupportsCAA’. From this, we can confirm that the video shared in the post is related to the CAA protests in Delhi during January 2020.
To sum it up, unrelated old photos and videos are being falsely linked to the ongoing farmers’ protest.