A viral video shows people marching with green flags featuring a moon and stars on the streets, purportedly from a Congress election campaign in Thrissur, Kerala. Party leader K Muraleedharan and cutouts of Rahul Gandhi are also visible. Many users on social media have claimed that Pakistani flags were waved at the rally.
While sharing the video, users wrote, “कांग्रेस का प्रचार केरला में सिर्फ हरे इस्लामिक झंडे, क्या अब भी आपको लगता है कांग्रेस देश के लिए सही है? (Only green Islamic flags at Congress’ campaign in Kerala. Do you still think Congress is right for the country?)”
Research
On doing a reverse image search of the video screenshots, we found that it was shared on a Facebook page named കൊണ്ടോട്ടി പച്ചപട (Kondotty Pachapada) on 19 April, 2019. According to the page’s bio, it belongs to a political organisation.
The caption of the post is written in Malayalam, which explains that the video is from Muraleedharan’s rally in Vatakara, Kerala, where he contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and won.
We also found a post related to the video on Muraleedharan’s Facebook profile, posted on 13 April, 2019. This post contains several pictures showing the Congress leader taking photographs with people during the rally. The green flags in the viral video are also visible in the pictures. In one photo, Muraleedharan is seen wearing the same green garland as seen in the viral video. The people seen in the pictures also appear in the said video.
We further investigated the flags seen in the video. A Google search revealed that these flags represent the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a political party in Kerala that is in alliance with the Congress. Upon examining the details of the flags in the video, it can be observed that these flags are solid green in colour unlike the Pakistani flag, which has a white portion too. The differences between Pakistani flags and IUML flags can be observed in the analysis below.
Conclusion
After the investigation, it has been found that the claim of Pakistani flags being waved during the Congress’ election campaign in Kerala is false. The flags seen in the video are not of Pakistan but of the political party IUML. This video is from the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign in Kerala.
This story was originally published by Fact Crescendo, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, excerpt and introduction para, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.
