The 2024 Lok Sabha election results were declared on June 4, 2024, with no party securing the majority. As a result, Janta Dal United (JD(U)) leader Nitish Kumar and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Chandrababu Naidu emerged as the ultimate kingmakers with 12 and 16 seats respectively.
Against this backdrop, images have gone viral on social media in which Nitish Kumar is seen with leaders of the INDIA bloc. The post is shared with a caption insinuating that Nitish may join the INDIA bloc.
The images are shared with a caption that reads, “Nitish Kumar Babu reached Delhi and met respected high profile leaders of INDIA alliance and talks are also going on with the top leadership of India alliance with Chandrababu Naidu ji and Rahul Gandhi had said that Modi will not become the prime minister in 2024. (translated from Hindi)”
A similar post can be seen here.
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. We found that the viral images are from 2023.
Image 1
On doing a Google Reverse Image Search, we found the same image published by The New Indian Express on April 13, 2023. The report associated with the image suggested that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi greets Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar met party president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence, in New Delhi to discuss strategy for creating an anti-BJP front ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The same image was published by News18 on January 5, 2023. The report suggested that it was at the time when Nitish Kumar was proposed as the national convener of the Opposition’s alliance.
Nitish Kumar switched to the NDA in January 2024, when he resigned as the CM of Bihar to form an alliance with the BJP-led NDA government.
Image 2
On doing a Google Reverse Image Search, we found the same image was shared by Rahul Gandhi on his X account on April 12, 2023. The image was shared with a caption, “In this battle of ideology, a historic step has been taken today towards unity of the opposition. We stand together, we will fight together – for India! (translated from Hindi)”
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral images are old.
