By Srijit Das
A morphed image of a Vistara flight boarding pass has been shared online with a false claim that it shows the ticket of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi leaving the country on June 5, a day after the announcement of the 2024 Lok Sabha election results.
The boarding pass shows Rahul Gandhi's name as the ticket holder and mentions a travel date of June 5, 2024, from India to Thailand's Bangkok.
BOOM found that the photo is digitally altered. We also spoke to Ajay Awtaney, who confirmed that the boarding pass belonged to him and he boarded the Vistara international flight from Delhi airport to Singapore in 2019.
The seven-phase voting for the Lok Sabha elections concluded on June 1, 2024 and the results will be announced on June 4, 2024, determining the public mandate.
The caption with the picture reads, "Rahul Gandhi's flight ticket for June 5 - 2024 Business class Vistara Airlines".
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Another X user shared the photo with a caption, "Rahul Gandhi running away to Bangkok on June 5."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
BOOM also received the photo on its WhatsApp tipline number (+91 7700906588) with a request for verification.
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Fact Check
BOOM first observed the picture closely and noticed a significant discrepancy in the viral boarding pass. The flight number on the boarding pass is different in two places - it is mentioned as 'UK121' in one place, and in another it is listed as 'UK115'.
We then ran a reverse image search on the viral photo, which led us to the original boarding pass featured in an article dated August 9, 2019, published by a website named 'Live From A Lounge'.
In the original photograph, the boarding pass has been assigned to Ajay Awtaney, with the departure date mentioned as August 6, 2019, from Delhi to Singapore.
Here's a comparison between the viral picture and the original photo published in the 2019 article.
Taking a cue, we reached out to Ajay Awtaney, the author of the article and the founder and editor of Live From A Lounge. Awtaney confirmed to BOOM that the article includes his boarding pass from 2019 when he traveled from Delhi to Singapore.
Awtaney told BOOM, "Yes, this was Vistara’s first international flight, and I was on board. It appears that whoever edited the photo forgot to change the flight number in one of the two places where it was listed on the boarding pass."
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