By Srijit Das
An old video of hoardings featuring Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with an inverted tricolour is being shared with a false claim that it is part of the recent campaigning by the party for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
BOOM found that the video shows an old incident from Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur and not recent.
In the 27-second video, shot from inside a moving vehicle, an unknown person alleges that the Congress disrespected the Indian flag by printing an inverted version of it on the hoarding and also placing it at the feet of the party's leader, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The video is being circulated as Bengaluru gears up for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for April 26, 2024.
Right-wing X handle Megh Updates posted the video with a caption, "Upcoming Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra rally posters in Bengaluru show Indian flag upside down, with green on top, video goes viral".
BOOM has fact checked the X handle Megh Updates several times in the past, for sharing misinformation of a communal nature.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on keyframes from the video and came across a post by Madhya Pradesh Labour Minister Prahlad Singh Patel's official X handle carrying a longer version of the same video from June 12, 2023.
Patel uploaded the video with a Hindi caption that translates to, "Madhya Pradesh Congress starts election with inverted tricolour?!"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Additionally, in the above longer version of the video, we can hear someone mentioning Gwarighat road as the location where the video was recorded. We then ran a keyword search for Gwarighat road in Madhya Pradesh and located the area on Google Street View, present in Jabalpur.
Below, one can notice a comparison between a screenshot from the video and a glimpse of the location in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, on Google Street View.
Several news articles from June 12, 2023, reported that Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur to campaign for her party ahead of the state's assembly election at that time.
On June 12, 2023, Zee News reported that Abhilash Pandey, the former President of the Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha in the state, alleged that the Congress showed disrespect towards the tricolour. The report also added that the leader announced their intention to lodge an FIR regarding the matter.
We also found a video news story about protests held in June 2023, days after the incident.
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