A photo from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with a young woman is being shared on social media, amid the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The claim: Those sharing the photo have claimed that it shows Gandhi with a girl who raised pro-Pakistan slogans, believing her to be activist Amulya Leona, who participated in several protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Karnataka.
Some versions of the claim also tell people to cast their votes carefully during the ongoing elections.
Is it true?: No. The woman in the video is Miva Jolly, the general secretary of the Kerala Students’ Union (KSU) for the Ernakulam district.
The photo was taken during the Bharat Jodo Yatra’s Kerala leg in September 2022 and has no connection to the ongoing elections.
How did we find out the truth?: Team WebQoof had debunked a similar claim which was shared with this photo in September 2022, two weeks after the Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra began.
On conducting a reverse image search of the photo using Google Lens, we came across the same picture uploaded on Instagram by the handle @miva_andreleo on 21 September 2022.
This account belonged to Miva Jolly, the general secretary of the KSU for the Ernakulam district.
She also uploaded a video on her Instagram, addressing and rubbishing the viral claim.
Jolly said that she met Rahul Gandhi during the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ when he visited Ernakulam and clicked a picture with him, and had been misidentified as the girl who raised pro-Pakistan slogans because of a similar haircut.
We also compared photographs of Jolly and Amulya Leona and saw that they were two different people.
Action against misinformation: When the claim was first shared, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh shared a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account, saying that Congress MP Hibi Eden had filed a police complaint against BJP leader Priti Gandhi for sharing “fake and distorted news”.
We have initiated legal action in 5 cases of fake and divisive news peddled by BJP leaders and their bhakt online hate factory to hurt #BharatJodoYatra. Be warned! We will not take this lying down.
Latest is a police complaint by MP @HibiEden against a particularly vicious bhakt pic.twitter.com/vubbTj0spT
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) September 26, 2022
Conclusion: The woman seen with Rahul Gandhi in the photo is Miva Jolly, not Amulya Leona.
(This story was originally published by The Quint, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective.)
