India TV Fact Check: Rashtriya Lok Dal President Jayant Chaudhary has recently left the INDI alliance and joined the NDA. A few days later, Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' reached Uttar Pradesh. A video of this visit is going viral on social media with the claim that Rashtriya Lok Dal workers had participated in Rahul Gandhi's visit and speculations are being made that Jayant Chaudhary may join the INDI alliance again. But when India TV fact checked this claim, it turned out to be misleading.
What is going viral?
A video was shared by one @DineshKumarLive on social media platform X on 25 February 2024. The caption accompanying this video reads, "RLD workers joined Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. Will Jayant Chaudhary return to the I.N.D.I.A...?"
A Facebook user has also made a similar claim. This video was shared on 25 February 2024 on a page named Aaj Ki Azad Awaaz. The accompanying caption reads, "RLD workers participated in large numbers in support of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh. True followers of Chaudhary Charan Singh ji are with India in this election."
Every flag of Lok Dal is visible in these videos. Chaudhary Charan Singh's photo is visible on these flags. Besides, Congress flags and photos of Rahul Gandhi are also visible in the video.
India TV did fact check
In our investigation, we first watched this video carefully. In the video, the flag of Lok Dal in the hands of the workers has Lok Dal written in big letters and the photo of Chaudhary Charan Singh is also printed on it. Sunil Singh's photo is also visible on these flags. Along with this, Lok Dal's election symbol 'farmer ploughing fields' is also visible on the flag.
With so much information, when we searched Google using keywords, news from our website India TV came up. This news was published on 25 February 2024. Its headline reads, "Lok Dal joins Rahul's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Akhilesh will also accompany him in Agra." Going down in the news, it is written, "Today when the Yatra was passing through Aligarh, Lok Dal also joined the Yatra. Lok Dal's national president Sunil Singh along with many of his workers joined the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. This party is a separate party from Jayant Chaudhary's Rashtriya Lok Dal."
What came out in the investigation?
In India TV's fact check, it became clear that workers of Sunil Singh's Lok Dal and not RLD had participated in Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra'.
