A photo showing a sea of green flags at a Congress road show is viral online with the false claim that the image shows Pakistani flags at the party's recent rally.
BOOM found that the claims are false, the photo is from 2019 in Wayanad and shows flags of the Kerala-based political party, Indian Union Muslim League, not Pakistan.
A user on X shared the photo with the caption, "This is not Pakistan, Its congress raily in India itself. Their message is very clear. I hope now your choice will be very clear. 🙏 #LokSabhaElections2024 #Elections2024 #BJP4India"
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@MrSinha, an X user that BOOM has fact-checked previously for sharing false and misleading claims online was one of the first accounts to share the photo, although they do not mention Pakistan directly. The caption reads, "Congress's road show, just see the ocean of green flags. No wonder their manifesto had everything about how to make India an IsIamic country...."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the photo is from 2019 and shows flags of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), not Pakistan.
We ran a reverse image search of some key frames from the viral video on Google and found a report by The New Indian Express published on April 5, 2019. The feature image of this report was an exact match to the viral image and was captioned, "AICC president Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra greeting party workers during the road show at Kalpetta after Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination papers in Wayanad on Thursday."
The photo was attributed to A Sanesh, whose X bio states that he is the Principal Photographer at The New Indian Express.
According to the report, the photo was taken after Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination at Wayanad, Kerala during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Following this, him and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra participated in a road show.
We looked at the viral photo closely and found that the flags in it did not match the flag of Pakistan, instead the flags belong to the IULM. While the flag of Pakistan has the moon in the centre and a white strip towards the side, the IULM flag has a fully green background and the moon on the top-left.
Below is a comparison between the viral photo, the Pakistani flag, and the IUML flag.
IULM is a Kerala-based state party and part of the United Democratic Front (UDF) alliance led by Congress.