Actor-turned-politician Vijay, founder and leader of political organisation TVK (Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam), spoke at a State-level meeting in Madurai on August 22.
He passed resolutions during the protest calling for an anti-caste killing law, the TNPSC to fill four lakh State posts that are now unfilled, stricter law-and-order measures, the suspension of plans for the Parandur airport, fair elections and Katchatheevu leasing to protect fishermen.
In the above context, an image is being widely shared on social media in which a bird's-eye view of a massive number of parked cars can be seen.
A social media user shared the image with a caption that reads, “Thalapathy Vijay’s Madurai Conference Car Parking. Thalapathy is always a mass @ TVKVijayHQ. #TamilVictory.”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The image shows cars at a Maruti Suzuki stockyard in Gujarat.
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the same image was shared by a website, Desh Gujarat, on August 26.
The report associated with the image stated that aerial footage of Maruti Suzuki’s Hansalpur (Gujarat) stockyard went viral, showing thousands of cars lined up, which is just 2–3 per cent of its 7,50,000-car annual capacity.
India Today shared aerial footage showing the same parking lot. The video published on August 26 was titled, ‘Maruti Suzuki's Gujarat stockyard is packed with a huge fleet of cars.’
India TV News also shared similar images of cars parked in a stockyard in Gujarat on August 26. According to the report, Gujarat’s Hansalpur is considered to be India’s most significant automotive manufacturing hub for Maruti Suzuki’s state-of-the-art plant.
It has an annual production capacity of 7,50,000 cars. Spanning hundreds of acres, the stockyard reveals just a sliver of the plant’s colossal output. What appears as an endless sea of cars, meticulously lined up, represents only 2–3 per cent of annual production, each vehicle standing as proof of India’s growing capacity to build at scale for both domestic and global markets, the report said.
Hence, we can ascertain the viral image is from Gujarat and does not show a parking lot at Tamil actor Vijay’s political meeting.