Today farmers from Punjab marched towards Delhi protesting against the recently passed farm reform bills. The farmers were stopped on their way in Haryana by police, using teargas and water cannons. Both Delhi and Haryana police were ready with blockades to prevent the protesters from reaching Delhi. The images of farmers clashing with police were published by media. However, several Congress leaders and affiliated accounts chose to use old photographs to attack the Modi government accusing of mistreating farmers. The Congress sycophants used old farmer protests images from 2018 from Delhi-UP border.
The official Twitter account of the youth wing of the Indian National Congress (IYC) was the first to use old images of 2018 farmers protest to insinuate how farmers are being ill-treated today. Two out of the four pictures used by Congress are that of 2018.
This got the ball rolling for other Congress leaders and the party loyalists. Congress MP Manish Tewari, sharing the same images, Tweeted: “Our farmers right to peacefully protest has become punishable with water cannons & police deployments under @BJP4India’s rule! Misleading & cheating them since 6yrs, this govt is now resorting to force against them-this is BJP’s way of celebrating #ConstitutionDay!
Hussain Haidry, who the “liberal-secular” ecosystem considers to be an emerging poet, who has left no opportunity to disparage Modi Government also jumped on to the bandwagon. Sharing the pictures, Haidry wrote that since it wouldn’t be proper to fly confetti on the Constitution day, the BJP government has decided to ruin the constitution itself.
Likewise, the NSUI’s national secretary Varun Choudhary also used the same old images to discredit Modi government.
Many other loyalists followed in the footsteps. Congress supporters like Tehseen Poonawalla and Prashant Kanojia had also shared the same images to cast aspersions on Modi government but deleted their Tweets later on being called out.
The truth behind the pictures
The pictures which were used by the Youth Congress and then mechanically copied by rest of the Congress coteries are actually from the year 2018. Two of the photos used by IYC showed water cannons and barricades being deployed by the police to disperse protestors from the gathering. The third photo showed an unidentified dead man, while the fourth one showed a large number of people on the streets.
The reverse image search of two of the four photos showed that the picture was indeed that of 2018 which Congress maliciously attempted to pass off as current.
Image 1: An October 2, 2018 report from The Hindu titled ‘Farmers’ rally to capital turns violent’ carrying the same image as its lead.
Image 2: The results leads to a report from The Quint dated October 3, 2018.
Congress, a repeat offender
However, this is an old habit which the Congress party often indulges in to malign the government. Recently, amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, Congress had Tweeted two old videos trying to insinuate that BJP government is completely merciless and indifferent towards the marginalised section of the society who have been hit drastically during the lockdown.
On May 12, taking to Twitter, Congress’ SC department shared an old image of a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh to attack the central government for its alleged inefficiency of handling of the migrant worker’s issue. Sharing the image through the official Twitter handle, Dalit Congress wrote that Modi govt should envisage the helplessness to the faces of these people and do something to help them. However, Twitter user Ankur Singh was quick to spot the lie. Sharing a screenshot of a news report from 2017, the Twitter user pointed out that this image is of some Rohingya refugees in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh, taken in 2017.