Fact check: Viral photos of bulldozing homes in UP are from 2016; Cong leader schooled [details]

Social media, Twitter, in particular, has turned a battleground for political parties as politicians express their opinions and criticism on the micro-blogging platform. The ease and convenience of tweeting compared to holding a press conference or sending a press release have made Twitter the go-to platform for political campaigns. But it's also where a lot of fake news and unverified information gets peddled. Senior Congress leader and former Minister of External Affairs Salman Khurshid has now got himself in the spotlight, but not for the right reasons.

The claim

Congress leader Salman Khurshid slammed Yogi Adityanath-led government in UP in his latest tweet. Khurshid shared four pictures and claimed that houses were being razed by bulldozers in UP's Unnao and Farrukhabad.

"Not Ukraine, these are pictures of Unnao and Farrukhabad in bulldozerland," Khurshid wrote, referring to UP as "bulldozerland."

Khurshid's tweet, thanks to his 150K+ followers, went viral and drew the attention of the masses. With nearly 13K likes and over 4,000 RTs, Khurshid's tweet became a hot topic on social media.

Khurshid took a dig at the Yogi administration after the bulldozer politics that originated in Uttar Pradesh nearly two years ago and has now become a mascot of the Yogi Adityanath government. The bulldozer first gained prominence in the Yogi Adityanath government in July 2020 when this mean machine was used to pull down the house of gangster Vikas Dubey in Bikru village in Kanpur. Thereafter, the bulldozer was used to demolish the ill-gotten properties of mafia dons like Mukhtar Ansari and Atiq Ahmad, both of whom were behind bars. The bulldozer gradually emerged as a symbol of justice against wrong-doers and Yogi supporters, mainly Hindus, cheered the initiative, giving Yogi Adityanath the title of "Bulldozer Baba."

Fact check

International Business Times reviewed the claims made by Salman Khurshid and the photos shared by him on Twitter.

If you run a reverse image search for the photos shared by Khurshid and after filtering out the results, clippings from the 2016 local newspaper can be found. Many users also flagged the photos as being old, but Khurshid's tweet wasn't deleted as of this writing.

Some users shared screenshots of 2016 newspaper clippings, in which the lead images were same as what Khurshid had shared. The photos that appear in the 2016 news clippings do not appear to be photoshopped. The photos shared by Khurshid and those in 2016 news clipping are from the exact same location, but the shot is different, which is proof of a timestamp.

Many users schooled Khurshid and reminded him that in 2016, Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister.

After reviewing the evidence, IBTimes has arrived at the conclusion that the images shared by Khurshid are from 2016.