As leaders of several political parties are campaigning in the poll-bound states of West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, a set of images showing empty chairs along with the pictures of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have gone viral.
However, both the images are from 2018 when Amit Shah was delivering a speech at the Yuva Udgosh rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi. Shah, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top BJP leaders like Adityanath have frequently rallied in Bengal and Assam ahead of the polls. The revival of these posts at this moment gives the impression that these photos are from one of the recent rallies.
After splitting the photo into two, and looking each of them up on Google using the reverse image search tool, it was concluded that they date back to 2018 as the image with the empty chairs directed to an article by Live Hindustan from 2018 about a youth assimilation programme called “Yuva Udghosh” being launched by Shah at Varanasi, in the presence of Adityanath and Pandey.
The image of Shah sitting with Yogi and Pandey, to their pictures from the event as published on the Live Hindustan articles. Upon closer look it was found the three in the same clothes and setting, this confirming that both the photos are from the same three-year old event as well.
“The Yuva Udghosh programme is being organised focusing on the youths who are above the age of 17 and will become new voters before the 2019 general election,” reported Business Standard.
Amar Ujala reported that the BJP was expecting a gathering of 17,000 youths however, the turnover was 7,000. “Following the instructions of the administration, policemen started requesting passers-by to attend the event,” it further said. Also a YouTube search using keywords ‘Amit Shah address Varanasi Yogi’ was done and it led to a video uploaded in January 2018 on the official handle of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
The caption along with the video stated that Shah was delivering a speech at Yuva Udgosh Rally in Varanasi on 20 January 2018. Shah had also tweeted about the event in 2018 and one can see that he is wearing the same attire as in the viral image. Thus, the ongoing claim is misleading.
