Fact-check: Is INC leader Adhir Chowdhury's controversial tweet on Rajiv Gandhi 'fake'? - Alt News
Abhishek Kumar
22nd May 2022 / 8:12 am
On the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury posted a tweet that attributed the following quote to Gandhi: “When a big tree falls, the ground shakes.” It must be noted that this was said by the former Prime Minister about the violence that occurred after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.
He subsequently took down his tweet but tweeted the graphic again with a different quote that talked about development.
pic.twitter.com/crBgIaMaiW
— Adhir Chowdhury (@adhirrcinc) May 21, 2022
He further said in another tweet that the earlier quote ascribed to Gandhi has “nothing to do with my own observations” and a “malicious campaign” has been propagated by unfriendly forces. (Archive link)
a malicious campaign is propagated by those forces inimical to me.
— Adhir Chowdhury (@adhirrcinc) May 21, 2022
Many users claimed that the earlier graphic was fake.
Journalist Aditya Menon had quote-tweeted Chowdhury’s earlier tweet and said, “This disgraceful tweet is something to be celebrated?”
We searched the link of the deleted tweet on Twitter and found that several people had quote-tweeted it.
The time 11:27 AM is visible on the viral screenshot. Chowdhury posted the subsequent tweet at 11:54 AM. With the help of UNIX Epoch Time, we searched for replies to Chowdhury’s tweets in the timeframe between 11:27 AM and 11:54 AM.
In one of the replies, Times Now journalist Siddharth Shekhar tagged the Twitter bot ‘Tweet Stamp’. The bot captured a snapshot of Chowdhury’s tweet and replied with a link to the tweet stamp.
Alt News checked the link of the ‘tweet stamp’ that led us to the link of the viral graphic along with other details of the deleted tweet. The deleted infographic can be accessed via this link which is live as of this writing.
Thus, the tweet where Adhir Chowdhury shared Rajiv Gandhi’s statement (“when a big tree falls, the ground shakes”) is not fake. It was a genuine tweet.
Abhishek is a senior fact-checking journalist and researcher at Alt News. He has a keen interest in information verification and technology. He is always eager to learn new skills, explore new OSINT tools and techniques. Prior to joining Alt News, he worked in the field of content development and analysis with a major focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
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