Authors
The state of Assam awaits its State Assembly elections beginning 27 March through 1 April. In the run up to these elections Indian National Congress party’s Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was seen plucking tea leaves and interacting with the tea garden workers in the northeastern state’s Biswanath district earlier this month.
Around this time, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted two images of tea gardens claiming that “Assam Bachao,” the official Congress campaign page of the state shared these images falsely attributing it to Assam.
You can view the archived versions of these tweets here and here.
On the other hand, Assam Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Bobbeeta Sharma denied Sarma’s claim saying, “The photos were those of the tea gardens of Taiwan and were definitely not used by Congress in its ‘Axom Bachao Ahok’ (Come, Let Us Save Assam) campaign as alleged by Sarma,” reported East Mojo.
The two posts shared by Congress’ official Assam Bachao Facebook page can be viewed below. The first titled, “Team Garden estate workers Assam” and the second image titled, “Let’s make Assam a symbol of Progress. Team Garden estate workers.”
Links to the archived versions of the two posts by Boom Live can be viewed here and here.
Now deleted, these posts were also added as Facebook ads which ran from 26 February to 1 March.
Also read: Assam Government Plans To Close Only State-Run Madrassas, Social Media Posts Mislead
Fact Check/ Verification
On performing a Google reverse image search of the first photograph, Newschecker found this image on multiple websites including Stock Unlimited, Adobe Stock and Lara Stock titled, “Bagua tea garden.”
The second image, “Bihu tea garden” was also found on Adobe Stock and Stock Unlimited.
Conclusion
Our research makes it clear that Congress’ official Facebook campaign page Assam Bachao did in fact post two images of tea gardens from Taiwan and falsely attributed them to Assam. BJP’s Himanta Biswa Sarma’s tweets pointing this out are true.
Result: True
Our Sources
Stock Unlimited: https://www.stockunlimited.com/image/bagua-tea-garden_2047225.html
Adobe Stock: https://stock.adobe.com/in/search?k=%22tea%20garden%22
Lara Stock: https://larastock.com/deposit-photo-127242156/?url=search%2Ftarasy%2F
Stock Unlimited: https://www.stockunlimited.com/image/bihu-tea-garden_2037872.html
Adobe Stock: https://stock.adobe.com/nz/search/images?k=bihu&asset_id=119542037
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