No, these photos are not from Congress party's Ballari rally

Hyderabad: Two photos of a massive crowd are being shared on social media with the claim that it shows the huge gathering at the Congress party's rally in Ballari, Karnataka.

The photos come after Congress held a mega rally on 15 October in Ballari district on completing the 1,000 km foot march Bharat Jodo Yatra.

A Facebook user shared the photos and wrote, "Visual of Congress party's public rally from Ballari." He also called the rally "historic and unprecedented."

Several users have shared the photos with the same claim. (Click here and here to view the posts.)

Fact Check

NewsMeter ran a keyword search and found that the Congress rally did see a massive turnout, however, the two photos doing the rounds are not from the Ballari rally.

Photo 1

On performing a reverse image search of the first photo, we found it on the website nairaland.com, published on 20 January 2015. The caption read "Reinhard bonnke crusade."

Reinhard Bonnke was an evangelist known for his gospel missions in Africa. We again performed a reverse image of the first photo using the keyword "Reinhard Bonnke " and found a better version of the same photo used in a 2019 article on the website Jesus.du. The description of the photo read, "Bonnke reached millions of people with his speeches."

We also found a similar photo posted on the Facebook page Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke on 20 July 2022.

Photo 2

On performing a reverse image search of the second photo, we found that it was posted on 13 October on Twitter by Congress leader Mohammed Feroz Khan. He claimed the photo was from the Congress party's Vidyardhi Nirudhyoga Siren rally held in the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana.

The same photo was also posted on 13 October by the Telangana Congress.

It is evident that the first photo is from a meeting of evangelist Reinhard Bonnke and the second photo is from a rally of the Telangana Congress organized before the Ballari rally. Hence, the claim is false.