Aerial footage of devotees at Indian religious festival misrepresented as crowd at political rally
A video of a crowded street was filmed during a religious festival in the state of Odisha in India, unlike the articles claiming that it shows a massive participation for the rally of awareness of the voters of the Indian opposition chief Rahul Gandhi in the neighboring state of the Bihar. The photographer who shot the original video told AFP that he had filmed it during the Jagannath Puri Rath Yatra in 2024.
“The enormous participation shows that Rahul Gandhi will be Prime Minister in 2029”, reads the legend in Hindi of a shared Facebook video on August 20, 2025.
Text superimposed on the video, an aerial view of a large crowd moving slowly along a street, results in “the hero of the people Rahul Gandhi”.
Screen capture of the false facebook post captured on August 21, 2025, with a red x added by AFP
The clip was shared in similar messages from Facebook and X, the leader of the Opposition Congress Party, Gandhi, launched an awareness march to 16 -day voters in the Indian State of Bihar, where the elections will take place in October and November (archived link).
Gandhi previously accused the India electoral commission of manipulating electoral lists to promote the Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won a third term in 2024 but did not succeed in a majority (archived here and here).
The commission called Gandhi’s accusation as “false and misleading”.
While the local media reported that large crowds attended the Gandhi gathering in Bihar, the video does not show crowds during the event (archived link).
Hindu Char Festival
A Reverse image search On Google using key images According to the falsely shared clip leads to the same video published on Instagram by photographer Vikki Keshri on June 2 (archived link).
His legend mentions “Jagannath Puri Rath Yatra” – one of the biggest religious festivals in India, which was held every year in Puri in the eastern state of Odisha (archived link).
One feature of the festival is the drag of three Hindu deities in huge tanks from one temple to another about three kilometers (1.5 mile). In 2025, the festival started in April and ended in July.
Comparison of screenshot of the falsely shared video (left) and Instagram clip published on June 2, 2025 (right)
Keshri told AFP that he had used a drone to shoot the video during the festival in 2024.
“Due to restrictions on the use of drones at the festival this year, I noted images of drones from last year,” he said on August 26.
The same images can be seen in its Instagram publication of July 8, 2024, and other articles on its account show the famous massive tanks of the festival (archived link).
The characteristics of the circulating video also correspond to the imaging of Google Street View of Puri (archived link).
Comparison of screenshot of images in circulation (left) and images of Google Street View of the same street in Puri (right)
AFP has also demystified other disinformation information linked to Gandhi.
