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| - Fact Check: Two-year-old Left Front rally in Kolkata shared as Feb 28 gathering
This image of a sea of people is going viral on social media with the claim that is from Sunday's joint rally of Left Front and Congress in Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground ahead of the 2021 Bengal assembly elections. India Today's AFWA probes the truth.
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India Today Fact Check
The Brigade Parade Ground on Sunday witnessed massive crowds in the joint political rally organised by Left, Congress and the newly formed Indian Secular Front. But this image was taken at another Left rally on the same ground in February 2019.
In the run-up to assembly elections in Bengal, the Left Front, along with its allies Congress and the newly formed Indian Secular Front, organised a rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground on Sunday in a massive show of strength against the Trinamool Congress and BJP.
On social media, many are sharing two images of a huge gathering with the claim that these are visuals from Sunday’s Brigade Parade Ground event.
Verified Twitter handles of Congress leaders and units have also shared the images with the caption, “Sea of people throngs at the Joint Rally of @INCIndia & @CPIM_WESTBENGAL at Brigade Ground in the Heart of Kolkata! This shows the anger of people in West Bengal, This will surely give sleepless nights to rulers in Delhi as well as Kolkata.”
The official Twitter handle of West Bengal Congress first tweeted one of the images claiming it to be from Brigade Parade Ground on Sunday but later deleted the post. The archived version can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that though the Left-Congress-ISF rally in Kolkata witnessed mammoth crowds, the images being shared are from February 2019, when the Left Front organised a similar rally at the same ground in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections.
The archived versions of the posts are saved here, here and here.
AFWA investigation
With the help of reverse search, we found that both the images were carried by several websites in 2019. In fact, the two pictures are identical, except for the colour filter used on one of them.
The same image is available in the stock photo gallery of Alamy. According to the caption, the picture was taken on February 3, 2019.
“Left activist from different part of state take part in the Left front Brigade rally ahead of General Election 2019,” says the caption. The photo credit is given to “Saikat Paul/Pacific Press/Alamy Live News”.
A similar picture was published on the website of “People’s Democracy”, the weekly newspaper of CPI(M), on February 10, 2019. Comparing the viral image with the picture published on the website, we found striking similarities in the crowd and the position of certain elements on the ground.
Image in People’s Democracy website
Viral picture
We found another similar image of the same rally published on the website “India Content”.
According to these websites, the picture of the large gathering at Brigade Parade Ground was during a Left Front rally on February 3, 2019, before the general elections.
Hence, it is confirmed that though the Left, along with allies Congress and ISF, organised a huge rally at Brigade Parade Ground on February 28, the picture being circulated is of a Left Front rally two years back at the same venue.
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