‘Metro services in 20 cities’: BJP’s Modi poster uses train photo from Singapore

by Abira Das

Several social media handles of BJP state or district units have shared a poster with a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an image of elevated metro-railway lines in the background. The poster says in Bengali, “কর্মসংস্থান না বাড়লে কীভাবে ভারতের শহরে শহরে পৌঁছে গেল মেট্রো পরিষেবা? কংগ্রেস বলবে, বিজেপি করবে!” (Translation: If employment did not go up, how did metro-railway services reach various Indian cities? Congress talks; BJP works.) The poster claims that under the BJP regime, metro services have started in 20 cities compared to 2014 when there were metro services only in 5 cities.

The official X (formerly Twitter) account of BJP West Bengal, @BJP4Bengal shared the poster with the same claim.

The official X handle of BJP Tripura (@BJP4Tripura) also amplified the poster.

An unverified page on X (@BJPBarrackpore) also shared the poster.

Facebook pages like ‘BJP 14-Badharghat Vidhansabha’, BJP Tripura, BJP West Bengal, BJP Tripura Khowai, 20 Boxanagar Vidhansabha, BJYM Tripura and BJP Khowai Mandal have also shared the poster.

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Fact Check

Alt News ran a Google reverse image search with the image of the train shown in the poster and came across a similar image uploaded on the photo website ‘Unsplash‘ by a photographer named Shawn. The image titled, ‘white and red train on rail road during daytime’ was tagged under the labels of ‘Singapore’ and ‘Jurong East’.

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A comparison between the image used in the BJP poster and the one clicked by Shawn reveals that both images have similar design patterns on the body of the train and there are several other elements common to both the pictures. For example, a pole, possibly a signal post, next to the tracks, the number 3 written on a yellow track-marker and the pattern of the rail-tracks in the surrounding area. In the BJP poster, the pole is partially hidden as PM Modi’s face has been placed over it.

We also contacted Shawn Ang on Instagram, and showed him the Modi poster. He confirmed to us that the picture was from Jurong East station in Singapore. This confirms that the metro-railway image used in the BJP’s poster is from Singapore and not from India.

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The picture of the metro railway tracks portrayed in the poster has been cropped out from the larger portrait-sized image clicked by Shawn, as shown below:

A closer look at the picture clicked by Shawn, from which the image in the BJP poster has been cropped, reveals that there is a Samsung store on the left side of the metro railway tracks of Jurong East station.

Taking a cue from this, we geolocated the area on Google Maps. The first slide below depicts the 3D view of the area near the Samsung store located beside Jurong East MRT station. The second slide shows the terrain view of the same area. The 3D view of the area clearly depicts the Samsung store, Jurong East MRT station and the four railway tracks which can be seen in the image clicked by Shawn and the BJP poster.

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We also came across a 2020 report by The Strait Times, a Singaporean media outlet. The report featured a similar image which was depicted in the BJP poster. The image description states, “Commuters were told to add about 20 minutes to their train journeys between Choa Chu Kang MRT and Jurong East MRT stations.” Choa Chu Kang and Jurong East are places in Singapore.

To sum up, the metro railway train and elevated tracks shown in the BJP poster depicting PM Modi’s image are actually from Singapore and not from India.

Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.

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