Republic uses unrelated image of Istanbul Congress Center as Congress party’s Turkey office, stirs political storm

by Ankita Mahalanobish

On a prime-time show on May 15, Republic editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, who was also hosting the show, claimed that the Indian National Congress (INC) had a registered office in Turkey. In the segment, he showed an image of the Istanbul Congress Center, calling it the registered INC office. Goswami also indicated that the Gandhi family had compromised national interests repeatedly.

Expressing concerns over Congress’s perceived alignment with Turkey in light of recent geopolitical developments, Goswami called it an issue of national integrity. “A friend of the enemy is an enemy,” he said, urging viewers to boycott the Congress party and clamouring for a ban.

 

Calls to boycott Turkey have been on the rise in India after the recent conflict with Pakistan, in which Turkey has sided with the neighbouring country. After India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror bases in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, where 26 civilians were shot dead, Turkey called India’s strikes “provocative”. Additionally, according to the Indian armed forces, Pakistan used weaponry supplied by China and Turkey to target military posts and civilian habitations. Since the India-Pakistan conflict spiralled and Turkey’s stand became apparent, Indians have cancelled trips to the country en masse, travel businesses have stopped their offerings and institutions such as Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT-Bombay and Jamia Millia Islamia have suspended their partnerships with Turkish universities.

Coming back to the Congress and their ‘Turkey office’, BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya also shared the Republic segment on May 17, asking Rahul Gandhi why his party needed to make this “move.” (Archive)

Social media user Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree), shared the same video on X and questioned why the Congress felt the need to have an office there when only 300 Indians were living there. He added, “Is Erdogan the new Caliph of Congress, orchestrating its blatant Islamization?” (Archive)

Another X user, Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues), also shared the same video, wondering why the party had an office in that country. (Archive)

Note that @JaipurDialogues has been fact checked by Alt News several times for amplifying misinformation.

Fact Check

The building shown in the Republic segment, which has been referred to as the registered office of the Indian National Congress in Turkey, is actually the Istanbul Congress Center. It is a convention centre located in the Harbiye neighbourhood of Sisli district in Istanbul, Turkey. It was inaugurated on October 17, 2009, and is owned by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

This Congress has nothing to do with the Indian National Congress, which is an Indian political party.

That said, in November 2019, the Indian National Congress had announced plans to establish an overseas office in Istanbul. According to the party’s statement, Mohammad Yusuf Khan was appointed to lead the Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) in Turkey. The Indian Overseas Congress, headed by Sam Pitroda, functions as a global network of Congress supporters and advocates, working to promote the party’s ideology and interests abroad.

But since the announcement in 2019, there have been no updates on whether an actual office was set up because the IOC website mentions the countries where it has a presence, where Turkey is not featured.

On May 20, news channel Republic issued a correction, admitting they used the wrong image to depict the Congress office in Turkey in their news segment. The corrigendum didn’t say that Congress did not have an office there, just that the image used was incorrect.

Alt News reached out to Pitroda, who explicitly told us, “The Overseas Congress never had a physical office in Turkey.”

On May 22, he also posted IOC’s statement denying claims of having an office there:

“It has come to our notice that certain malicious and completely baseless rumors are being spread by national mainstream media, falsely alleging that the Indian National Congress has a registered office or building in Istanbul. We strongly condemn and categorically deny these fabricated claims, which are clearly designed to mislead the public and malign our party’s reputation.”

Political storm

Needless to say, Republic’s use of the wrong image and questioning the party’s integrity, with BJP leader Amit Malviya amplifying it, led to quite a political storm. On May 20, Congress’s youth wing filed an FIR against Malviya and Republic’s Goswami “for masterminding a heinous and criminally motivated campaign to disseminate patently false information.”

Even if we keep aside the error by Republic, Malviya’s X post questioning the Congress’s overseas presence seems odd because it’s not the only party to do so; other political parties also have units and supporters abroad, including the BJP.

The Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) has established centres in the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands and other countries. Several news reports and articles indicate OFBJP has a presence in Turkey. These reports named a Dipankar Ganguly as the convenor from Turkey.

In August 2018, Vijay Jolly, then senior BJP leader and the global convener of OFBJP had even met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara and offered him a scarf with the BJP’s lotus symbol.

OFBJP’s Turkey presence was also highlighted in Pitroda’s statement.

To sum up, the picture of the building that many called a Congress office in Istanbul is actually the Istanbul Convention Center, a property owned by a municipal body in Turkey. It is unrelated to the Congress party. And while the Congress did announce plans of having an office in Turkey in 2019, no news reports or information on their website corroborate that they established one. The Overseas Congress chief, Sam Pitroda, told Alt News that they had no physical office there. Also, having an international wing is not unusual for political parties to garner support; the BJP too has an overseas presence in Turkey.

(This story was updated with Sam Pitroda’s statements and the Youth Congress’s FIR.)

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