Fact Check: Misleading Attribution of Old Photos to Opposition Rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections were set to happen in several stages from April 19 to June 1, 2024. On March 31, 2024, leaders of the Opposition INDIA bloc held a “Loktantra Bachao” gathering at New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. It was after this gathering that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in what they say is a case of money laundering related to the Delhi liquor policy.

What’s the claim?

In this situation, many pictures taken from above seem to show huge groups of people supporting Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi at the “Loktantra Bachao Rally,” which was put together by the Opposition bloc.

There is one picture of a large group of people dressed in yellow that has been passed around as proof of Kejriwal’s support base. What the Hindi captions say is that “The streets of Delhi are brimming with Kejriwal supporters,” and they include the hashtag #IndiaWithKejriwal.

#GreatEthiopianRun
The biggest running event in #Africa
Take part in it next time and have fun! pic.twitter.com/UsjRkshGpL

— The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of #Ethiopia 🇪🇹 (@mfaethiopia) January 23, 2022

At the time this was written, one of these posts with the picture that went popular had over 424,000 views. You can find old copies of this post and others like it here, here, and here.

Another picture taken from above of a large crowd that is said to be a recent snapshot from the gathering at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan has gone viral. The captions for this picture say, “Scenes from today at the Ramlila Maidan Alliance Rally.” There is a #INDIAAlliance with Modi.

At the time this was written, one of these posts sharing the viral picture had gotten 407,000 hits. Archived copies of this post and others like it can be seen here and here.

The first shot, on the other hand, comes from an event in Africa. In the same way, another picture that is said to be from the recent gathering in Delhi is actually an old one from 2019 in West Bengal.

What are the facts?

Image 1

By searching for the first picture in reverse image search, it was found that it came from the official account of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia and was shared on January 23, 2022. The post’s caption said that the picture showed the “Great Ethiopian Run,” which is Africa’s biggest running race and takes place every year in Ethiopia.

On top of that, we found a similar picture on the website for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Achievement Funds. “Haile Gebreselassie kicks off the Great Ethiopian Run with the slogan ‘We Can End Poverty by 2015,'” the description said. In this picture, taken from a different angle, you can see a sign that says “Abyssinia Springs.”

This picture came up again in May 2022, but this time it was wrongly shown as a group of Chennai Super Kings fans at the 2023 IPL final, along with some other pictures that had nothing to do with the event. Logically Facts did a fact check and found that pictures from events in Spain, Africa, and Thailand in different years were being used wrongly as pictures of CSK fans at the IPL final.

Image 2

We found the popular picture in a 2019 news story by People’s Democracy, an English-language weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of India. The story said that thousands of workers from the Left Party went to a rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade ground that was led by the Left Front.

The CPI(M) West Bengal unit also shared the same picture on X on June 10, 2020, with the description “A bird’s eye view of last year’s Brigade Rally at Kolkata,” which proved that it came from the 2019 meeting.

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

A bird eye view of last year Birgade Rally at #Kolkata #LalSalaamComrade pic.twitter.com/EmuvpqaiXI

— CPI(M) WEST BENGAL (@CPIM_WESTBENGAL) June 10, 2020

Rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade in 2019

In February 2019, news stories on websites such as Peoples Dispatch, Peoples Democracy, and Social News said that thousands of workers from the Left party attended the protest at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade ground on February 3, 2019. According to these news stories, the rally was held to protest against the governments at the state and the center, which are run by the BJP.

It was said that at this gathering, which was held in India before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, a resolution was passed asking for the BJP and TMC governments to be removed from the state.

The verdict

Images from the Great Ethiopian Run in Africa in 2022 and a rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade ground on February 3, 2019, have been going around with the false claim that they show scenes from the 2024 “Loktantra Bachao” rally in Delhi with Kejriwal supporters. That’s why we marked the claim as fake.