By Anmol Alphonso
An old video of Rahul Gandhi partaking in an aarti in Rajkot, Gujarat has been cropped to falsely claim that the Congress leader refused to perform the Hindu ritual when he was passed the aarti plate.
BOOM found that in the original video, Gandhi can be seen first performing the aarti after which he passes on the plate to those standing next to him. This sequence has been edited out of the viral clip.
In its 21st day of the 150-day long Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi and other prominent Congress leaders are walking through the state of Kerala. The foot march, which began in Kanyakumari, is supposed to reach Karnataka on September 30 and will traverse several states before it reaches Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, the end point of the yatra.
The viral video has been revived as Durga Puja festivities are being celebrated across the country.
In 23 second- clip, Rahul Gandhi is seen at a Durga puja aarti and the person to his right passes on the aarti plate directly to the person standing next to Gandhi.
The cropped video is being shared with the caption, "The way Rahul Gandhi denied to take Aarti and perform the rituals... He again proved from which commun!ty he belongs #Navratri #BharatTodoYatra"
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The same video is also being shared on Facebook with the false claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video has been cropped and in the original video Rahul Gandhi is seen performing aarti after which he passed the aarti plate to those standing next to him. This portion has been left out of the video to make the misleading claim.
On running a keyword search with the relevant keywords like 'Rahul Gandhi' 'puja' 'aarti' and running a reverse image search which results showed that in the original 52 seconds Gandhi can be seen performing aarti before passing on the plate.
Journalist Supriya Bhardwaj had tweeted a longer 52 seconds video on September 27, 2017, with the caption, "#RahulGandhi performed puja at Garba pandal in Rajkot.."
Here we can see Gandhi holding the aarti plate at the beginning of the video after which he passes the plate to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Ghelot.
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The same 52 seconds video was also tweeted by other Congress leaders on Gandhi attending a Durga puja in Rajkot, Gujarat in September 2017 before the state elections that year.
Gandhi had also tweeted photos from the puja on September 27, 2017 with the caption, "The day ends well with Garba in Rajkot". In the second photo, we can see Gandhi holding the aarti plate.
Gandhi had visited Gujarat in the run up to the 2017 Gujarat election and on his 3 day visit in September 2017, he had visited five temples and performed aartis at a garba venue each in Jamnagar and Rajkot.
