West Bengal Legislative Assembly is scheduled to be held between March 27 to April 29, 2021 in eight phases. As political parties rack up campaigning efforts, several media users have posted an image of a massive crowd at an election rally.

As per Congress national convener Saral Patel and Congress media panellist Pankhuri Pathak, the image shows Congress-Left rally in Kolkata. These tweets were retweeted over 6,000 times cumulatively.

On February 28, NDTV reported after a decade of losing power, the Left Front, in alliance with the Congress and the newly formed Indian Secular Front (ISF), projected itself as a “third alternative force” in the emerging Trinamool Congress versus BJP political binary. They held a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata.

Several other Congress Twitter accounts, including West Bengal Congress, also posted this image.

A Hindi message (1, 2) shared by several users says that the image represents the first rally of Congress and the Left in Kolkata.

(Viral Hindi text: कोलकाता में आज कांग्रेस और लेफ़्ट की पहली रैली हुई लेकिन त्रिकोणीय मुक़ाबले में किसका फ़ायदा होगा?)

Image from 2019 shared as recent

Alt News performed a reverse image and found that Social News XYZ had published the image in 2019. The caption stated that the image shows a Left Front rally at the Brigade Parade Ground, Kolkata on February 3, 2019. The photo is credited to IANS. The image was also published by two other websites (1, 2) in February 2019.

In 2020, the Communist Party of India tweeted the viral image and said, “A bird eye view of last year Birgade Rally at #Kolkata”.

An image from the 2019 Left Front rally at the Brigade Parade Ground, Kolkata was reshared as their recent rally held ahead of West Bengal polls. Congress members and official social media accounts posted this image. However, it is noteworthy that similar visuals of the rally held at Brigade Parade ground on February 28 also show a massive turnout.

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