An Indian Muslim politician has been falsely accused of displaying Muslim flags before an election

India’s main opposition party, the Congress, is often targeted with misinformation by supporters who accuse it of favoring the country’s Muslim minority. In the latest case, a video has gone viral on the internet ahead of local elections that purportedly shows supporters of a Muslim Congress politician decorating flags from different countries and Muslim organizations. The video actually shows a Muslim holiday procession that has nothing to do with the election.

“Look at their flags. Flags of Palestine, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Hezbollah.. No Indian flag,” read X’s post that shared the video on November 15, 2024.

“Guess which state this constituency is from? This one is in Akola district of Maharashtra in the west. It is a constituency of Congress party Sajid Khan Mastan Khan.”

The video shows a cavalcade with people waving the Indian tricolor and the flags of various Muslim countries and groups.

The post garnered more than 125,000 views as Sajid Khan, a Muslim politician from the Congress party, campaigned for the Akola West seat in the Maharashtra election — which he went on to win.

A screenshot of the fake post was taken on November 17, 2024

The Congress has joined hands with regional parties in a bid to dethrone Maharashtra’s ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Supporters of the Hindu nationalist BJP often accuse the Congress of favoring India’s 200 million Muslim minority.

Although India is not constitutional, calls for greater integration of the country’s political system and its Hindu faith have grown rapidly since Modi took office in 2014.

The video was shared with similar claims elsewhere on X and Facebook.

However, the video shows a Muslim religious procession in Latur district of Maharashtra about 330 km (200 miles) from Akola (archived link).

A religious procession

A reverse image search on Google found a longer version of the video posted on YouTube on October 1, 2024 (archived link).

The title of the video suggests that it shows a procession to celebrate the Islamic festival of Eid Milad-un-Nabi in Latur district of Maharashtra.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in the fake post (left) and the YouTube video (right):

Another keyword search on YouTube found similar videos paraded on local news channels Latur News Official again BharatSatta Live from September 2024 (archived link here and here).

Hamid Sheikh, editor of BharatSatta, confirmed that the clip in the fake posts shows an Eid Milad-un-Nabi procession in Latur, Maharashtra.

“The procession was taken out by the citizens on Milad-un-Nabi on September 19, 2024,” he told AFP on November 20.

“The procession started from Sophia Mosque in the city and passed through the Main Road via Shivaji Chowk and Gandhi Chowk. This video was shot near Gandhi Chowk.”

AFP confirmed the location of the video by comparing it to a Google Maps image of the area (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the post’s fake video (left) and Google Street View (right) with similarities highlighted by AFP: