This photo has circulated in a news report about a raid on an Indian sweet shop that uncovered a rotten dessert

A photo has been shared in multiple Facebook and Twitter posts alongside a claim that it shows political party workers in the east Indian state of Bihar dumping Indian sweets after losing an election. The claim, however, is false; the photo has circulated in a news report about a raid by government officials at a sweet shop in the northern state of Haryana which uncovered a batch of rotten dessert.

The photo was published here on Facebook on November 12, 2020.

A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post

The post’s caption reads: “After loosing battle of ballots in Bihar, RJD workers decided to dump 1000s of ‘Rasgulle’. Wish they had served them to the poor instead. It’s so important to be educated.#TejashwiYadav.”

RJD is an acronym for Rashtriya Janata Dal, a political party led by Tejashwi Yadav. In November 2020, the party fell short of securing a governing majority in the Bihar election.

Rasgulle is a syrupy Indian dessert.

The photo was also shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here and here and on Twitter here and here.

The claim, however, is false.

Reverse and keyword searches on Google found the photo was published in a news report about a raid by officials on a sweet shop in Sirsa, a city in Haryana. 

The photo was published here by Hindi-language newspaper Amar Ujala on November 10, 2020.

Part of the story translates to English as: “Officials from Haryana government today conducted a raid at a sweet shop, some of the samples of the sweets have been sent to the laboratory, while 100 kilograms of putrid Rasgulla were destroyed.” 

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading posts (L) and the photo published in Amar Ujala’s report (R):

Other Indian news outlets published reports on the raid on the sweet shop in Haryana here, here and here.