Morphed Graphic Featuring Rahul Gandhi Shared Ahead Of Gujarat Polls

A morphed screengrab of a 2017 show from Times Now on Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Election results and the positive interaction received by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on social media has surfaced as recent on Twitter.

The morphed screengrab shows a comparison between several political leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and how Rahul Gandhi is ahead of them with regards to garnering positive sentiments on social media.

The screengrab has been tweeted by Spirit of Congress as recent. According to the bio, the handle belongs to Arun Reddy, the national coordinator for social media of the Congress party and is circulating in the backdrop of Gujarat Assembly polls, which are scheduled to take place later this year. Click here to view an archive of the tweet.

Screengrab doctored and old

BOOM was able to ascertain that the image is old, as the anchor seen in the screengrab Anand Narsimhan is a former employee of the news channel Times Now and is currently working with Network 18. We then looked up relevant keywords on Twitter and was able to find the video bulletin of Times Now from which the screengrab has been captured.

In the original photograph, there are photos of politicians Hardik Patel, Vijay Rupani and Jignesh Mevani in place of Banerjee, Yadav and Kejriwal respectively. The show, which was recorded live after the Gujarat Assembly polls results in 2017 shows how Twitter users had a 'positive sentiment' towards Rahul Gandhi and how he was ahead of PM Modi and other leaders contesting the elections in terms of a positive conversation on social media about them. While Modi was at 15 per cent, the study showed that Gandhi was at 67 per cent in terms of positive sentiment on Twitter. The video, uploaded on Times of India website has been headlined as, Gujarat and Himachal elections: Positive sentiments for Rahul Gandhi on social media.

The same video was uploaded on YouTube with the description "With Himachal Pradesh gone, the Congress is reduced to mere four states in the country. The BJP was at 44 seats in the 68- seater assembly of the hill state. However, Congress president Rahul Gandhi is getting positive sentiments on social media platforms" on December 18, 2017.