Fact Check: Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot’s poster edited to add obscene words, viral image is fake

New Delhi (Vishvas News): Ahead of the Rajasthan Assembly election, scheduled to be held later this year, the social media is beginning to see a higher number of fake and misleading posts on political leaders of the state. An image of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s poster with an obscene word printed on it is going viral. Several social media users, who might be unaware that the poster is fake, have shared the post assuming it to be genuine.

Vishvas News investigated the viral post and found that it had been edited. The original poster was from April 24, when the Rajasthan government started a dearness relief camp. In the viral social media, the poster has been tampered with in order to make fun of CM Ashok Gehlot.

What’s Going Viral

Facebook user Jubin Nautiyal wrote an objectionable line on April 19 while sharing a picture of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s poster.

Several social media users have shared the edited picture virally. View the archived version of the post here.

Investigation

Vishvas News first used Google reverse image search tool to ascertain the veracity of the viral poster. The search yielded a tweet by Congress national coordinator Nitin Agarwal was found, posted on April 19. He had shared the original image in reply to a viral tweet, which he called fake. The Rajasthan Police was also tagged in Agarwal’s tweet. Responding to Agarwal, the Rajasthan Police tagged the Jaipur Police and asked them to take cognizance of the matter.

Taking the investigation forward, Vishvas News did a comparative study of the viral picture and the original photo. A lot of similarities could be seen in both. Ashok Gehlot’s clothes as he posed with folded hands, the Ashokan pillar on the left side of the poster, the date April 24 written on the back, the background color of the poster were the same in both the images.

Further, Vishvas News gathered information about the ‘Inflation Relief Camp’. A video shared on April 24 was found on the Twitter handle of the Chief Minister. In the video, it was told that the inauguration ceremony of the country’s first historic ‘Inflation Relief Camp’ took place in Mahapura (Jaipur).

Many news related to ‘Inflation Relief Camp’ were also found during Google open search. A news article published on bhaskar.com on April 24 read, “Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot inaugurated the inflation relief camp today to provide benefits of government schemes to the common man. In this camp held at Mahapura in Sanganer tehsil of Jaipur, Pushpa Devi Prajapat was made the first beneficiary by giving an LPG cylinder. Today such camps have been set up at 1,799 places across the state, the number of which will be increased to 2,700 in the next few days.” Read the full report here.

In the next phase of investigation, Vishvas News contacted Congress national coordinator Nitin Agarwal. He alleged that in order to malign the image of the Chief Minister, his poster was made viral with obscene words edited on it. This is quite objectionable, he said. A complaint has also been made to the police regarding this.

Now it was the turn to gather information on the user who posted the fake post. Facebook user Jubin Nautiyal is a resident of Bihar. We found a lot of viral and objectionable content on his account.