Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started on September 7, 2022, from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, is now in its 10th week. The leaders and supporters of the Indian National Congress are currently in Maharashtra after successfully covering five states in southern India.
Against this backdrop, a viral picture showing Indian cricketer Virat Kohli wearing a T-shirt with Bharat Jodo Yatra logo is doing the rounds on social media. Many users have shared the image, claiming that the Indian cricketer shows his support for the movement.
A Facebook user posted the viral picture with a caption: ഭാരത് ജോഡോ യാത്രയുടെ ടി ഷർട്ട് ധരിച്ച് ക്രിക്കറ്റ് ഇതിഹാസം വിരാട് കോഹ് ലിയും (English translation: Cricket legend Virat Kohli wearing the T-shirt of Bharat Jodo Yatra.)
You can check the image here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral picture, and found it to be false.
To begin with, if Kohli had posted anything about the political movement, it would have made headlines immediately. We could not find a single post, tweet, or news article confirming the same. Conducting a Reverse Image Search, we traced an article titled: Virat Kohli’s black and white headshot is oh-so-hot! published online on Pinkvilla — an Indian entertainment and lifestyle platform. The article is dated September 24, 2016, whereas the Bharat Jodo Yatra started in 2022.
The picture in the article matches the viral image, except for the Bharat Jodo Yatra Logo, indicating that the latter has been added to the picture to mislead people.
The image of the article had been shot by Rohan Shrestha — a famous Indian celebrity photographer. Rohan had also posted the image on his Instagram profile, dated September 23, 2016.
Here too, we could not find any logo of Bharat Jodo Yatra on his T-shirt, confirming that the image has been edited to promote Bharat Jodo Yatra in Virat Kohli’s name.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral image claiming Virat Kohli wearing a T-shirt with the Bharat Jodo Yatra logo is false.
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