Fact Check: Social media users made viral edited picture to show crowd at TMC rally

Recently, West Bengal’s ruling party Trinamool Congress (TMC) had organized ‘Jan Garjana Sabha’. An alleged picture of the meeting is going viral on social media, while sharing which it is being claimed that there is a huge crowd present in the meeting. However, during its investigation, Lighthouse Journalism found that the photo had been edited to show a packed crowd at the meeting.

What is going viral?

X user Trinamool Supporters has shared the viral picture on his profile.

Other users are also sharing this picture.

How was the investigation?

We started our investigation by running a reverse image search on the photo. We found a picture shared by X user Sudhanidhi Bandopadhyay.

The user has mentioned in his post that this photo had appeared on page five of Anandabazar Patrika but compared to the photo being shared by some social media users, the photo published in the newspaper showed less crowd.

After this we checked the e-paper of Anandabazar dated March 11, 2024.

The number of people appears to be less in the picture published in the newspaper.

conclusion: The viral picture showing Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s packed public rally is edited.