On Friday. Twitter user Ritesh Kumar posted a collage of pictures featuring journalist Ravish Kumar and the Communist Party of India’s Begusarai candidate Kanhaiya Kumar at a roadshow. The message posted with the photo-montage claims that a man was set up to garland Kanhaiya as NDTV anchor Ravish Kumar stood nearby.
The tweet below has three pictures which claims to represent a sequence of events in which a volunteer was hiding a Bharatiya Janata Party cap that was later given to a man standing in front of Kumar. It claimed that the man put on the cap just before garlanding Kanhaiya Kumar. The post attempted to tarnish the credibility of the journalist by calling the entire episode “propaganda”.
रविश बाबू बेगुसराय की धरती पर भी अपने टीम के साथ मिल कर प्रोपगंडा फैलाना नहीं छोड़े।
Pic 1 BJP के टोपी को छुपा कर पहले से रखते हुए एक कार्यकर्ता
Pic 2 फिर उस टोपी को कन्हैया के साथी पहनते हूए
Pic 3 बीजेपी की टोपी पहन कर कन्हैया को माला पहनाते हुए और रविश बाबू रिपोर्टिंग करते हुए pic.twitter.com/KIdZ8WQLa3— Ritesh kumar (@Minkkeybihari) April 12, 2019
The sequence of images posted above was also converted into a meme and several users on Twitter and Facebook have shared this.
#RavishKumarMC साहेब आप जन्मजात बेशर्म हैं या बड़ा होने के बाद कोई कोर्स किया है ?#BloodyPrestituteTraitor pic.twitter.com/ep8yWRICzX
— Bhaiyya ji [ Chowkidar ] (@shrialokmishra) April 12, 2019
A Facebook user, Gandhar Agarwal, was among those who posted the meme with an identical narrative. It has been shared more than 2,000 times so far. An archived version of the post can be accessed here.
Fact-check
Alt News found that the narrative circulating on social media is false. The series of events, depicted in the photomontage, are actually in reverse order.
Ravish Kumar recently visited Begusarai, Bihar to report on Kanhaiya Kumar’s campaign. Alt News contacted the journalist to ask about the incident.
We have accessed the recording of the incident where a man donning a BJP cap and scarf approaches Kanhaiya Kumar and garlands him. In the video posted below, it is evident that man was already wearing the cap when he met the Begusarai candidate and removed it after Kanhaiya Kumar’s supporters urged him to.
Thus, the allegation that the entire incident was a set-up is false. The sequence of events were reversed in order to make the false claim.
Both Ravish Kumar and Kanhaiya Kumar have frequently been incessantly targeted with misinformation on social media.
This article first appeared on AltNews.