By Rohit Kumar
A collage of three morphed and fake screengrabs of news channel Aaj Tak claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's estranged wife Jashodaben has joined the Indian National Congress and will contest the general elections from the Vadodara constituency are circulating on social media.
BOOM reached out to Manish Doshi, chief spokesperson, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, who denied the same. BOOM was also able to ascertain that the screengrabs were doctored using an editing tool.
The collage of the screengrabs posted on X (formerly Twitter) have been captioned as, "Bhakts, this is the power of Congress... will you boycott Jashodaben or support her? You must like and comment without fear." (Original text in Hindi: अन्धभको देखो ये होती है , कांग्रेस की शक्ति, क्या जशोदाबेन को बायकॉर्ट करोगे या इनका साथ दोगे)
Click here for an archive of the X post.
The same screengrabs have been shared by an unverified page of Indian National Congress with a similar caption.
One of the doctored screengrabs of Aaj Tak also claims that Jashodaben has commented on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and her estranged relationship. The fake quote misattributed to Jashodaben reads, "The man who cannot keep the sacred vows of marriage is not fit to be called a Hindu."
Fact Check
BOOM was able to ascertain that the screengrabs of Aaj Tak are morphed, and no such statement was made by Jashodaben.
We reached out to Gujarat Congress, who denied Jashodaben joining the party. Manish Doshi, chief spokesperson of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, told BOOM, "I am not aware of Jashodaben joining the Congress party." Further, regarding Jashodaben contesting the General Elections from Vadodara constituency, Doshi said, "There is still time to release the list of the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections."
We also ran a keyword search for relevant news reports about Jashodaben joining the Congress party but were not able to find any report on the same.
Additionally, BOOM ran a font comparison between the screengrabs of breaking news from Aaj Tak news channel and the viral screengrabs. The viral screengrabs look clearly morphed.
