Did Rahul Gandhi meet with Nathan Anderson of Hindenburg Research?
Many right-wingers in social media claim that Rahul Gandhi met Nathan Anderson, founder of Hindenburg Research.
Claim
Shri @RahulGandhi himself has cooked khichdi with Hindenburg Chief Nathan Anderson, now what is the justification for asking questions to the PM? Think for yourself sir.
Rating
Explanation
Hindenburg Research and its founder Nathan Anderson have been in the prime-time news lately. The New York based short seller’s recent exposé on Adani Group had caused the shares of the company to plummet in value. The share price of Adani Enterprises Ltd is just half of what it was over a month ago.
The report on the Adani Group also caused a massive political uproar which resulted in calling for the Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe into the allegations of fraud & illegal activities by the Adani Group by the Opposition parties.
In the aftermath of the share price collapse, many BJP supporters are claiming that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met Nathan Anderson, the founder of the Hindenburg Research to insinuate that the Hindenburg Report on Adani was manufactured as part of Congress’ plan. See here, here, here, here and here.
What’s the truth?
In our reverse image search, we were able to find out that the picture is from 2018 when Rahul Gandhi visited Germany. The person in the picture with Rahul Gandhi is Niels Annen, a Minister of State and Member of Bundestag in the federal parliament of Germany.
The meeting was widely reported on many reputed news outlets such as The Indian Express, NDTV, Times of India, Hindustan Times etc.
Moreover, the Indian National Congress had tweeted about the meeting in its official twitter handle along with the now viral image.
Congress President @RahulGandhi met @NielsAnnen, Minister of State & Member of the Bundestag and discussed Indian & German politics, floods in Kerala, GST & Jobs.#WillkommenRahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/xLufHI3zY6
— Congress (@INCIndia) August 22, 2018
Niels Annen had also tweeted a photo with Rahul Gandhi in 2020 about his meeting with Rahul Gandhi when he visited India, in which he also acknowledged having met Rahul in his constituency, Hamburg.
https://twitter.com/nielsannen/status/1217486990159106048
Here’s a side-by-side comparison images of Nathan Anderson and Niels Annen.
This image of Rahul Gandhi with Niels Annen, a German politician, is shared with false claims that the person with Rahul is Nathan Anderson, the founder of Hindenburg Research. Interestingly, similar misinformation campaign was carried out after the BBC’s documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi “India – The Modi Question”.
Read More: Did Rahul Gandhi meet BBC documentary producer a few months back?
Conclusion
In our search, we found that Rahul Gandhi meeting Nathan Anderson using the viral picture is false. The person with Rahul Gandhi is a German politician, Niels Annen, not Nathan Anderson of Hindenburg Research.
