Virat Kohli’s status congratulating Rahul Gandhi after Congress’s victory in Karnataka elections is fake.
Rating
Claim
Virat Kohli is on 🔥, hope he doesn’t delete it. #KarnatakaElectionResults2023
Explanation
An image claiming to be a screenshot of Virat Kohli’s Instagram status congratulating Rahul Gandhi post the victory of Congress in Karnataka is widely shared on social media platforms. The claimed screenshot shows Rahul Gandhi’s photo with the caption “The man, the myth, the leader” tagging Rahul Gandhi. Some of the photos with such a claim can be seen here and here.
Virat Kohli congrats to Rahul Gandhi on #KarnatakaResults Hope he doesn't delete the story .#ViratKohli #RahulGhandi #KarnatakaPolls @imVkohli @RahulGandhi @INCIndia @INCKarnataka pic.twitter.com/hKP9oeihMW
— Alexander Deepak (@DeepakD55187) May 13, 2023
What is the truth?
When searching the Instagram profile of Virat Kohli, we found two different statuses as of this writing. One tagged Surya Kumar and mentioned “Tula Maanla bhau”, and the other one, a paid partnership with One8World.
When searching for any news articles from authentic media channels to know if Virat Kohli has posted a status as claimed and deleted it later, we found no such news on any reputed media channels. It would have been reported by multiple media channels if Virat Kohli has posted a status congratulating Rahul Gandhi.
Moreover, the image is initially tweeted by a parody account with the name ‘Dr Nimo Yadav’ which usually posts misinformation and sometimes sarcastic posts and is later shared by many on Twitter.
When watching the viral image closely we found that the text font in the viral image and the original status are different.
Conclusion
It is found that the image claimed as Virat Kohli’s status congratulating Rahul Gandhi on Congress’s victory in the Karnataka elections is fake.
