Morphed graphic shows Rahul Gandhi as most popular leader

Hyderabad: As the Congress party's Bharat Jodo Yatra is making headlines and witnessing huge participation of common people, a graphic allegedly comparing the popularity of various political leaders is doing the rounds on social media.

The graphic shows Rahul Gandhi ranked first (66%) followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (15%), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee (7%), former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav (5%), and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (4%).

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Fact Check

NewsMeter performed a reverse image search of the viral graphic and found a similar graphic in a video report published by Times Now on 18 December 2018. The anchor can be heard saying that Rahul Gandhi is the talking point on social media around the Gujarat election and the graphic shows the highest positive sentiments towards Rahul Gandhi across Twitter.

However, we found that the viral graphic is digitally altered. The original graphic shows social media's positive sentiment ranking Rahul Gandhi at the top (67%) and PM Modi second (15%). Other leaders in the graphic are Hardik Patel, Vijay Rupani, and Jignesh Mewani—all of them from Gujarat. The viral graphic shows Mamta Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, and Arvind Kejriwal.

Further, we ran a keyword search and found an article by The Times of India carrying the Times Now video report with the same graphic comparing the positive sentiment on social media for Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi, Hardik Patel, Vijay Rupani, and Jignesh Mewani. The article was published on 19 December 2017 and is titled "Rahul Gandhi's temple run brought seat blessings to Congress."

According to the article, Rahul Gandhi visited 27 temples during the Gujarat election in 2017, which led to an improvement in the tally from 66 seats in the previous election to 77 seats in 2017.

It is evident that the viral graphic is digitally altered and is from the 2017 Gujarat election. Hence, the claim is false.