Navy Day in India is observed every year on December 4 to celebrate the accomplishments of the Indian Navy. Several BJP accounts and leaders have shared a poster featuring a Naval ship with the hashtag #NavyDay – Rambhai Mokariya, Janak Chamar, Dr Anil Bonde, Rajiv Babbar, Vinod Chavda, Tankadhar Tripathy, Jaskaur Meena, Gaurishankar Bisen and Mukesh Patel.

It was also shared by BJP Maharashtra.

Several Congress leaders and accounts also shared the same image of a naval ship.

Picture of US naval ship

A Google reverse image search revealed that the ship in the picture is US Navy’s Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship. In 2010, Stars and Stripes captioned the image, “Defense secretary Robert Gates has called for 55 Littoral Combat Ships, which are designed to operate in shallow, or littoral, waters.”

The official website of the US Navy said, “The Littoral Combat Ship would be designed as a focused-mission, modular, surface combatant smaller than a FFG but larger and more capable than a PC or MCM ship. LCS was envisioned to be an independently deployable, theater-based ship, capable of changing primary missions through modular Mission Package.”

Therefore, an image of US Navy ship was tweeted BJP Tamil Nadu and several leaders of the party to celebrate Indian Navy Day.

Same image shared across political specturm in past years

The same image was shared BJP Tamil Nadu last year.

BJP MP Vijay Baghel shared the same picture while expressing gratitude to Indian naval soldiers.

Other BJP members who tweeted the image were MLAs Krishna Gaur and Sunil Deshmukh. BJYM Madhya Pradesh president Abhilash Pandey also joined the bandwagon.

Akali Dal spokesperson Manjinder Sirsa too shared the image.

And so did TRS MLA Devireddy Sudheer Reddy.

Congress had tweeted the same image of a combat ship on Navy day in 2019. It was later taken down from their timeline.

It was also tweeted by Lt. Governor of Puducherry Kiran Bedi with the message, “we salute all the women and men in the #Navy for their bravery, dedication and patriotism.”

Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje posted the image in 2019 to commemorate the day on Twitter.

Adding to the list was state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan News that put out a tweet with the same photo.

In 2017, the official Twitter handle of Bharatiya Janata Party had tweeted the photograph on Navy Day.

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About the Author

Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.