Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi recently visited the United States for three days. Against that backdrop, a supposed newspaper clipping has gone viral. The headline says, “Americans are asking is Rahul from India or Pakistan?” Several social media users claim the clipping is from a San Francisco-based newspaper.
Retired Major General Harsha Kakar shared the image on X and wrote, “Americans want to know if @RahulGandhi is from India or Pak. Which individual goes abroad to abuse his own home. Unheard in the world. Only exception is this man. Will @INCIndia @sampitroda @kharge @SupriyaShrinate & @Jairam_Ramesh claim this is a Congress custom.” (Archive)
Americans want to know if @RahulGandhi is from India or Pak. Which individual goes abroad to abuse his own home. Unheard in the world. Only exception is this man. Will @INCIndia @sampitroda @kharge @SupriyaShrinate & @Jairam_Ramesh claim this is a Congress custom. pic.twitter.com/nEfD2K3EkP
— Maj Gen Harsha Kakar (@kakar_harsha) September 10, 2024
The tweet has received over 5 Lakh views and reshared over 6,600 times.
The same image was also shared by an X user named Riniti Chatterjee Pandey. (Archive)
अब तो अमेरिकी भी पूछ रहे हैं कि राहुल गांधी भारत से है या पाकिस्तान से ? pic.twitter.com/9iiXkEKemE
— Riniti Chatterjee Pandey (@mainRiniti) September 11, 2024
At the time of this report being written, this tweet has been viewed close to 1.5 Lakh times and reshared over 4,200 times.
Other users who have shared the same image include Neetu Garg (@NeetuGarg6), who, according to her X bio, is linked to the BJP Mahila Morcha and is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah.
Alt News has also received requests on its WhatsApp helpline number (76000 11160) to authenticate the image.
The Image was Viral in the Past as well
Rahul Gandhi visited the US last year as well and delivered a talk in San Francisco, California, in May 2023. Several BJP leaders had then expressed their displeasure at the Congress leader’s speech. Some even said that he was speaking the language of Pakistan. The same ‘newspaper clipping’ had gone viral then as well.
Twitter user Janmajit Sinha (@JSinha007) shared the image of the apparent newspaper report on June 21, 2023. He claimed that the San Francisco-based newspaper published the report because Rahul Gandhi had spoken in a way only an enemy of India could. The tweet has been retweeted over 1000 times. (Archive)
VHP leader Sadhvi Prachi (@Sadhvi_prachi) had shared the image on June 19, 2023. The tweet has received over 1.35 lakh views. (Archive)
Pappu From India or Pakistan ?#PappuDiwas pic.twitter.com/Dc4saXTVMb
— Dr. Prachi Sadhvi (@Sadhvi_prachi) June 19, 2023
Several other users such as @SVishnuReddy, @POLITICALCRIT14, @sarmabjp and other social media users also shared the image with similar claims.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
We came across several striking discrepancies in the news report which are usually not seen in newspapers. The text in the image lacks consistency when it comes to the format. It is also filled with grammatical errors and typographical errors, which are unusual for a newspaper (highlighted below). The arrangement of the lines and the lettering look similar to those in texts translated using Google lens.
Besides, the ‘report’ got the name of the place where Rahul Gandhi had given his speech wrong. It mentions that the event happened in ‘Santa Claus, California’ while the Congress leader made his address in Santa Clara, California. We also noticed that at the top left corner of the image, a part of a letter can be seen which is not in English. It looks like Hindi script.
We translated the text from English to Hindi and ran a reverse image search on the picture. This led us to several social media posts that contained this Hindi report.
Vivek Pandey, who, according to his Twitter bio is the chief of Rashtravadi Hindu Mahasabha, shared the Hindi report image on June 5. (Archive)
अमेरिकी पूछ रहे हैं की राहुल भारत के है या पाकिस्तान को???
प्रश्न तो सही है।।।। pic.twitter.com/dat5ZMDGmM— Vivek Pandey (@INDVivekPandey_) June 5, 2023
When we translated the Hindi text to English using Google translate, the result we got was remarkably similar to the image shared by social media users. This confirms that the apparent English news report by a San Francisco newspaper is actually a Google translated version of a Hindi report.
We also looked up the list of non-English languages newspapers published in California and found that as of now, no Hindi newspaper is published in California. In fact, the only Hindi newspapers available in the US are those that are shipped from India.
Therefore, neither the viral English report nor the Hindi one is from any San Francisco newspaper or any US-based newspaper. The claim made by the Right Wing users that a San Francisco-based newspaper questioned Rahul Gandhi’s allegiance to India is false. The same image had gone viral in the past as well.
The post Viral ‘US newspaper report’ questioning Rahul Gandhi’s nationality is fake appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.
Oishani Bhattacharya | Radio Free (2024-09-12T13:52:30+00:00) Viral ‘US newspaper report’ questioning Rahul Gandhi’s nationality is fake. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/09/12/viral-us-newspaper-report-questioning-rahul-gandhis-nationality-is-fake/
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