Fact Check: Video of Indian flag upside down at Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s feet is not related to upcoming general polls
The second phase of Lok Sabha polls is scheduled for April 26, 2024. Political parties are busy campaigning to woo the voters. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi attended public meetings in Chitradurga and Bengaluru’s HSR layout in Karnataka.
Priyanka_banners
The second phase of Lok Sabha polls is scheduled for April 26, 2024. Political parties are busy campaigning to woo the voters. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi attended public meetings in Chitradurga and Bengaluru’s HSR layout in Karnataka. The leader was seen addressing the rally along with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Meanwhile, a video showing banners of Priyanka Gandhi’s rally is being shared by several social media users. The banners show an inverted Indian flag at Priyanka Gandhi’s feet. We can hear an audio in Kannada language claiming that these banners were seen in Bengaluru, before the leader’s rally. The audio claims “Priyanka Gandhi’s banners have Indian flag upside down. How can the people who don’t know how to portray the Indian flag, rule our country?”
The video is shared with the caption “Upcoming Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra rally posters in Bengaluru show Indian flag upside down, with green on top, video goes viral”
Fact Check:
The claim is Misleading. The video is from the year 2023. The banners were seen in Madhya Pradesh in 2023, the video is not related to campaigning for the upcoming polls.
When we performed a reverse image search on Google, we found the same video shared by X (Twitter) users in June 2023.
The video shared by @kakar_harsha is same as the viral video with Hindi audio, where we can hear people talking about the banners at Gwarighat Road, on June 12, 2023, with the caption: “There are no comments from me. These are from a common Indian. @INCIndia @RahulGandhi
The video was also shared by another user @sukeshNakhua with the caption “Congress in Madhya Pradesh deliberately places the #Tiranga upside down in its poster !!! Whose order can it be to insult #Tiranga ??? Any guesses ???”. This video was shared on August 22, 2023.
Taking this as a cue, when we searched for news articles published on this issue, we found an article published by firstport.com, with the title ‘In Madhya Pradesh, Congress insults national flag as posters of Priyanka Gandhi show tricolor upside down’. The article also shares screenshots from the viral video showing banners with an upside-down Indian flag.
We also found a Hindi news article in Nai dunia.com, which stated that during the general meeting organized at the martyr memorial Gol Bazar, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, the Congress has insulted the national flag. An FIR was also filed against the senior leaders of the party, as the green colour of the flag can be seen on the top and saffron colour is seen below on the hoardings.
Here is the comparison of the viral video and the screenshots seen in the older articles.
Hence, the viral video in circulation is an old one and is not related to the recent Bengaluru campaign by the Congress party. The banners were erected on the roads of Jabalpur in 2023. The claim is Misleading.