Pakistani Flags Were Not Waved In The Rally Supporting Rahul Gandhi In Kerala. Viral Video Is Old, Claim Is False.

A video of people on the streets with green flags in a political rally is going viral on social media. Along with the video, it is being claimed that Pakistan flags were waved in the rally organized in support of Rahul Gandhi during his nomination filing in Wayanad. 

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However, when we investigated the video we found that the flags seen in the video are not flags of Pakistan but flags of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). Here’s the fact-check.

Fact Check 

We started our investigation by taking some screenshots of the viral video. After doing a reverse image search of the screenshots, we found the viral video on a YouTube channel. The video was uploaded on 10th June 2019. The caption of the video reads IUML 2019. Therefore, it is clear that the viral video is neither recent nor has any connection with the current Lok Sabha elections. 

Thus, it is clear that the video is not of any recent event. Also, the flags seen in the video are not Pakistan flags. Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is an Indian political party and a part of United Democratic Front (UDF), an alliance led by Congress in Kerala. The flags seen in the video are of IUML. You can see comparison between the flags of Pakistan and IUML. 

The video could possibly be from the 2019 election campaign. The party workers can be heard raising slogans in Malayalam. One of the slogans is, “ee kolam Satish Chandran Veettil Irikkatte… Parliamentil Unnithan VijayichuPokatte” These slogans have references to the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPM) leader K.P. Satheesh Chandran and Congress leader Rajmohan Unnithan. K.P. Satheesh Chandran and Rajmohan Unnithan contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Kasargod constituency, representing CPM and Congress respectively. 

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On observing the video closely, we noticed a shop in the video named Aramana Silks in the background.

 When we searched for “Aramana Silks Kasargod”, we found an ad for a housekeeping service on YouTube that had visuals of the shop seen in the video.

A comparison between the shop seen in the video and the shop shown in the YouTube Ad can be seen below. It is evident that the Aramana Silks Bazar shop seen in the video is in Kasargod. Hence, we can say for sure that the video is not from Wayanad but Kasargod and it is of a political campaign from 2019. 

Conclusion

From our investigation, we found that the viral video is of a UDF rally that took place in Kasargod in 2019 to campaign for UDF candidate Rajmohan Unnithan. The flags seen in the video are of IUML an alliance partner of Congress. Hence, the claim that Pakistan flags were raised in Wayanad during Rahul Gandhi’s nomination filing is False.