Aerial footage of devotees at Indian religious festival misrepresented as crowd at political rally

Published on August 29, 2025 at 12:00
3 min read
By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India

A video of a packed street was filmed during a religious festival in India's Odisha state, contrary to posts claiming it shows a massive turnout for Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi's voter awareness rally in neighbouring Bihar state. The photographer who shot the original video told AFP he filmed it during the Jagannath Puri Rath Yatra in 2024.

"The huge turnout shows Rahul Gandhi will be prime minister in 2029," reads the Hindi-language caption of a Facebook video shared on August 20, 2025.

Text superimposed on the video, an aerial view of a large crowd moving slowly along a street, translates as "People's Hero Rahul Gandhi".

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on August 21, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The clip was shared in similar Facebook and X posts as opposition Congress party leader Gandhi launched a 16-day Voter Awareness March in India's eastern Bihar state, where elections will be held in October and November (archived link).

Gandhi has previously accused India's Election Commission of manipulating voter rolls to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won a third term in 2024 but fell short of a majority (archived here and here).

The commission has called Gandhi's accusation "false and misleading".

While local media reported large crowds attended Gandhi's rally in Bihar, the video does not show crowds at the event (archived link).

Hindu chariot festival

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared clip led to the same video posted on Instagram by photographer Vikki Keshri on June 2 (archived link).

Its caption mentions "Jagannath Puri Rath Yatra" -- one of India's biggest religious festivals, held every year in Puri in the eastern state of Odisha (archived link).

A feature of the festival is the dragging of three Hindu deities in huge chariots from one temple to another approximately three kilometres (1.5 miles) away. In 2025, the festival began in April and ended in July.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the Instagram clip posted on June 2, 2025 (right)

Keshri told AFP he used a drone to shoot the video during the festival in 2024.

"Due to restrictions on drone use at the festival this year, I re-uploaded last year's drone footage," he said on August 26.

The same footage can be seen in his Instagram post from July 8, 2024, and other posts on his account show the festival's famous massive chariots (archived link).

Features of the circulating video also correspond to Google Street View imagery of Puri (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the circulating footage (left) and Google Street View imagery of the same street in Puri (right)

AFP has also previously debunked other misinformation linked to Gandhi.

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