Fact Check: Old Photos Of Akhilesh Yadav Meeting Nitish Kumar And Chandrababu Naidu Viral With Misleading Claims

New Delhi Vishvas News – The results of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 have been announced. The NDA alliance has secured a majority with 292 seats, while the opposition alliance ‘Indi Alliance’ has secured 234 seats. Meanwhile, a collage is being shared on social media claiming that Akhilesh Yadav has met Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu to form the Indi Alliance government.

In its investigation, Vishvas News concluded that the claim surrounding the viral video is fake. The viral picture of Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar is one year old, while the viral picture of Chandrababu Naidu and Akhilesh Yadav is approximately five years old. The meeting between Nitish and Chandrababu Naidu at Akhilesh’s residence occurred during this time.

What Is Going Viral?

On June 5, 2024, Facebook user Samajwadi Parinda shared the viral pictures with the caption, “Akhilesh Yadav met Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu… Akhilesh Yadav means 24 Carat Gold, whoever came close to him, he brought them to life…-:2019 In Lok Sabha, he took Behenji from 0 to 10. 2022 Gave 6 MLAs to Om Prakash Rajbhar. 2022 Gave Jayant Chaudhary 8 MLAs and his own quota to Rajya Sabha. Sent Kapil Sibal to Rajya Sabha. Swami Prasad Maurya MLC… Gave one MLA to Pallavi Patel “Today again Indian National Congress in UP – made Uttar Pradesh alive by increasing it from 1 to 6 MPs!!” And now if the Almighty supports, and everything goes well, Akhilesh ji will also play a big role in bringing Nara Chandrababu Naidu ji and Nitish Kumar ji… My leader, my pride. Long live Samajwadi Party… Long live Shivpal Singh Yadav… Long live Akhilesh Yadav.”

See the archive link of the post here.

Investigation:

To validate the authenticity of the viral photo featuring Nitish Kumar and Akhilesh Yadav, we conducted the Google reverse image. We found the viral picture in a report by Englishdaily.com, published on April 25, 2023. According to the report, during that time Nitish Kumar was allied with Indi Alliance. Alongwith Tejashwi Yadav, he visited Akhilesh Yadav’s residence to meet him and discuss  the matters pertaining to the Indi Alliance and the position of PM.

During the investigation, we discovered a video documenting the meeting between Nitish and Akhilesh Yadav on the official YouTube channel of Zee Bihar. The video ( archive link ) was shared on April 24, 2023, with the same information, as discovered in our search.

According to the report ( archive link ) published on Dainik Jagran’s website on January 29, 2024 , in 2020, he formed a government in Bihar in alliance with NDA but in 2022, he left the NDA and joined Lalu Yadav’s party RJD and formed a government in Bihar with them. On January 28, 2024, Nitish Kumar left RJD and formed a new JDU-BJP (NDA) government and contested the Lok Sabha 2024 elections with the NDA.

To validate the authenticity of the viral photo of Chandrababu Naidu and Akhilesh Yadav’s meeting, we conducted the Google reverse image. We found a video report related to the viral photo ( archive link ) on NDTV’s official YouTube channel, uploaded on May 18, 2019. According to the available information, Chandrababu Naidu visited Akhilesh Yadav after Rahul Gandhi to form an alliance against BJP.

We found the viral photo on Akhilesh Yadav’s official X account(archive link) on May 18, 2019, with the caption that he met Chandrababu Naidu at his Lucknow residence.

According to a report ( archive link ) published on India Today’s website on April 28, 2024 , Chandrababu Naidu left the NDA alliance in 2018 after being upset with the BJP but in April before the Lok Sabha elections 2024, Chandrababu Naidu once again joined the NDA and contested the elections together with the BJP.

For more information, we reached out to Shobhit Srivastava, a special correspondent covering news related to Samajwadi Party in Dainik Jagran Lucknow. He told us that the viral pictures are old.

Finally, we investigated the social media account of the user who shared the viral pictures with misleading claims and discovered that the user is followed by approximately 5000 people and is aligned to a specific ideology.