The Congress on April 5, 2024, announced its manifesto, “Nyay Patra”, for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Focussing on the five ‘pillars of justice’, the 48-page Congress manifesto reportedly guarantees 10% quota in jobs for EWS, a nationwide socio-economic and caste census and raising the 50% cap on reservations for SC, ST and OBC
Under section 10 of the manifesto, on page 43, Congress wrote about water management and sanitation, featuring a photo of a polluted water body, replete with plastic bottles and other trash.
“Our rivers are polluted because of the discharge of effluents into the rivers. Discharge of any kind of effluent into rivers will be prohibited by law. Panchayats and municipalities will be required by law to devise and implement schemes for disposal of effluents and waste,” read one point under the section titled “Water Management And Sanitation”.
However, a reverse image search led us to multiple reports from November 2023, seen here and here, including the BBC and Sky News, featuring a similar photo. The reports stated that PepsiCo has been sued by New York state for plastic pollution along the Buffalo River that is allegedly contaminating the water and harming wildlife.
A comparison of the photo appearing in the reports (left) with the one used in the Congress’s election manifesto (right) shows that it is the same image that has been cropped.
“Ducks feeding in a mass of floating waste in New York’s Buffalo River,” read the photo caption in one of the reports. The reports credited the image to the New York Attorney General’s office, thus confirming that the Congress used a photo of New York’s Buffalo River in its manifesto.
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