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| - Fact Check: Old image of BJP flags abandoned in waste container goes viral ahead of UP polls
With only days away from the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, social media has been abuzz with heated campaigning by political parties, and a whole lot of misinformation spread by people, either knowingly or unwittingly.
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India Today Fact Check
The claim is misleading as the image has been in circulation since at least 2018.
With only days away from the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, social media has been abuzz with heated campaigning by political parties, and a whole lot of misinformation spread by people, either knowingly or unwittingly.
One such piece of misinformation was an image showing several Bharatiya Janata Party flags dumped in a public waste container, with the claim that this photo was from western Uttar Pradesh.
Retired IAS officer Surya Pratap Singh was among the many who tweeted the picture. "Here, someone from western Uttar Pradesh sent this to me. Now, it’s up to you," the translation of the tweet from his verified handle read.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the claim misleading. This photo has been in circulation for over three years at least.
AFWA Probe
A reverse search of the image produced several results. Among them was a tweet from December 4, 2018.
This confirmed that the image was definitely not a recent one and was at least three years old.
More posts with the same photo were found on Facebook when we searched with the Hindi lines used in the tweet.
We found that this image was used by supporters of different opposition parties to call out the BJP. Here is a tweet from 2021 using the same photo.
We also found a photo story carried by lokmat.com on December 11, 2018, which contained the photo in question.
The story was a compilation of top social media memes following the counting of assembly poll votes in five states on December 11. Telangana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Madhya Pradesh were the five states that witnessed the counting of votes on the day.
Though the actual origin of the image couldn't be located, it is clear that the virally shared photo is not a recent one from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.
(With inputs from Sanjana Saxena in Lucknow)
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