Polling for the 70 seats of the Delhi assembly elections is set to be held on February 5, with results slated for February 8. Against this backdrop, a pamphlet with a picture of former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is doing the rounds on social media. It states that Muslims from New Delhi should vote for Kejriwal for the betterment of the community, and that he is the messiah of the community.

BJP and Narendra Modi supporter Jitendra Pratap Singh, who often spreads false information, shared an image of the pamphlet on his X handle and wrote, “On one hand Kejriwal is becoming a Hinduist, on the other hand his party is distributing such pamphlets in Muslim areas. The Hindus of Delhi should read this.” (Archived link)

BJP-supporter and verified X user @kreatelyMedia has often been found posting misleading and communal, hate-filled posts. @kreatelyMedia, too, made the same claim by tweeting the image. (Archived link)

Chandan Sharma, another X user who has been found spreading misinformation in the past, shared the image and made an appeal to residents of New Delhi to vote for BJP for the sake of their children’s future. (Archived link

Alt News also received several requests to verify the image on the WhatsApp helpline (7600011160).

Fact Check

We performed a reverse image search of the viral image of the pamphlet, which led us to a report by Aaj Tak, published on February 6, 2020. According to the report, the same pamphlet had also gone viral during the 2020 elections. However, the report does not mention which party or individual was responsible for publishing it.

We noticed that the image in the Aaj Tak report shows a newspaper placed below the pamphlet with the date Thursday, February 6, 2020 written on it, indicating that the image of the viral pamphlet is not recent.

X handle @vimal_thinks also shared a picture of this pamphlet on February 6, 2020.

To sum up, a five-year-old picture of a pamphlet that calls Arvind Kejriwal the messiah of Muslims is falsely being shared in connection with the upcoming Delhi assembly elections.

Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.

Donate Now