Fact Check : Digitally Altered Images of Army Chief General Manoj Pandey and Mohan Bhagwat Viral With Wrong Claim

Vishvas News (New Delhi): A picture of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat is going viral on various platforms of social media. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Army Chief General Manoj Pandey can also be seen along with Mohan Bhagwat in the picture. It is being claimed that the Army Chief paid a visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. Vishvas News in its investigation found that the photo was edited. The viral picture has been made by editing three different pictures together. All these pictures have been taken from different events/meetings the three have had individually.

Claim :

Twitter user Guna Congress Seva Dal (archive) shared this image and wrote, “Just think. Only Nagpuri Brahmins can give priority to leading India. According to Shri Mohan Bhagwat ji.

Investigation:

Vishvas News cropped the photo and searched it using Google reverse image search to know the truth of the viral picture. During this we got the photographs of Mohan Bhagwat, Nitin Gadkari and General Manoj Pandey at different places. After which it became clear that the picture of all three had been edited and added together to look like one.

We found the original picture of Nitin Gadkari in a report published on India TV’s website on 4 April 2022. In the original picture, Nitin Gadkari can be seen standing with Raj Thackeray and his family.

When we cropped Dr Mohan Bhagwat’s image and searched it through Google reverse image, we found the original image in India Today’s report. It was published in december 2016. In 2016, Uddhav Thackeray along with his son had reached the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to meet Mohan Bhagwat. In the original picture, Mohan Bhagwat can be seen standing with Uddhav Thackeray and Aaditya Thackeray.

We found the original picture of General Manoj Pandey in Etv Bharat’s report. It was published on April 19 2022. In the original picture, General Pandey is seen standing with his friend Dileep.

Taking the investigation forward, we started searching whether the three have met recently. We searched on Google through several keywords, but we could not find any credible media reports. The comparison of all the three pictures can be seen clearly in the collage below.

For more information, we contacted Rajiv Tuli, media in-charge of Delhi RSS. They told us that the viral claim is false. No such meeting has happened recently. Viral photo edited.

This picture was shared by a Twitter user named Guna Congress Seva Dal with the wrong claim. According to the profile, the user is a resident of Madhya Pradesh and has been active on Twitter since May 2022.