A 22-second-long clip shared by X user Vijay Thottathil (@vijaythottathil) showing a massive crowd in a large open area went viral on November 1.
Thottathil posted the video with the caption, “Early in the morning itself Ramlila Maidan is packed #ChaloDilli,” thus claiming that the crowd had gathered for the INDIA’s bloc’s rally on November 1 to protest against electoral irregularities and demand the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Early morning itself Ramlila Maidan is packed ✊🏼 🔥
#ChaloDilli https://t.co/oM5kSpCNoH— Vijay Thottathil (@vijaythottathil) November 1, 2026
The post by Thottathil, who was till recently a social media manager of Kerala Congress, amassed over 243,000 views and was reshared over 1,400 times. (Archive)
Congress leader Harish Rawat, too, shared the video on Instagram, claiming that the visuals were from the November 1 protest rally.
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Various other X handles posted the same 22-second clip, claiming that they are visuals from the ‘Chalo Dilli’ rally held on November 1. A few of them are shown in the gallery below:
Fact Check
In the comments of the video posted by Vijay, X users were quick to point out that the video was not from the November 1 ‘Chalo Dilli’ protest, and instead was from another rally held at an earlier date.
To determine the veracity of these claims, we ran a reverse image search on a few of the keyframes, which led us to a video uploaded by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on December 14, 2025.
This video, captioned “‘वोट चोरी’ के खिलाफ जनसैलाब 🔥🔥” (A public outpouring against “vote theft”), was uploaded during the “Vote Choro, Gaddi Chhodo” protests of December 2025.
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The comparison of certain keyframes of both videos reveals stark similarities, including the backdrop, the size of the crowd, a flag being waved in the front, and even a blue tent visible in the clip. See below:
A deeper dive revealed that Congress leader Harish Rawat had himself shared the video during the “Vote Choro, Gaddi Chhodo” protests on December 14, 2025. He has now shared the same clip again as scenes from the INDIA bloc rally of November 1, 2026.
To sum up, the viral clip with the massive crowds gathered at Ramlila Maidan shared by Thottathil is an old clip from the “Vote Choro, Gaddi Chhoro” protests that was organised by Congress in December last year. Several users have falsely presented it as visuals from the recent ‘Chalo Dilli’ march on November 1.
Rajanyo Ghosh is an intern at Alt News.
