No, a Pakistan flag was not raised at a recent Congress rally in Rajasthan

What is the claim?

Legislative Assembly elections were held recently in the northern state of Rajasthan, India, on November 25, 2023. A video now circulating on social media platforms claims that Pakistan’s national flag was waved at a Congress party rally in the state during the election campaign.

The video shows people waving multiple Congress party flags in the rally. One can also spot a green-colored flag in the crowd — and a person not seen in the video can be heard commenting that it is the “Pakistani national flag” and that “people should be ashamed to have voted for the party.”

Sharing the video, one such post on Facebook (archived here) read, “Look at Congress campaigning with Pakistani flags in Rajasthan. Congress wants to convert Rajasthan into Pakistan. Congress-free India (translated from Hindi).” The clip is also being shared X (archived here) with a similar narrative. Other archived versions of the posts can be viewed here, here, and here. 

Screenshot of posts claiming that this video shows the Pakistan flag being raised at a Congress party rally in Rajasthan. (Source: X/Facebook/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video is old, and the green-colored flag in the viral clip is not the Pakistan national flag.

What are the facts?

Observing the video, we could infer that the green flag in the viral clip is not the Pakistan national flag. The Pakistan flag has a crescent moon and star with a white stripe on the left side, while the flag in the viral video has white straps on both sides and some inscriptions written in blue.

Comparison between the flag in the viral video and Pakistan’s national flag.
(Source: Facebook/Getty Images/Screenshot)

Through a reverse image search of a keyframe from the video, we found a livestream of this rally that was uploaded to Facebook on December 11, 2018. This indicates that the video is not recent. The Facebook video shows the exact vehicle with some posters and similar music playing in the background. In the live video, at 0:13 seconds, we can observe the same “ॐ” symbol on the vehicle and a few mobile numbers written on the vehicle.

Comparison between the vehicle as seen in the viral clip and the live video of the rally in 2018.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

We called one of the numbers and spoke to Hanuman Prasad, who informed us that he owned the vehicle seen in the video, with ‘New Nirmal DJ sound’ written on it. Prasad told Logically Facts, “It was not a Pakistan flag in the rally; someone had picked it up from the nearby mosque called Masjid Fatima, and they held it up.” He added, “Other flags of Hindu outfits were also waved at the rally, not just this green-colored flag.”

Logically Facts has also contacted the mosque, Masjid Fatima, and will update the story when we receive a response.

It is to be noted that this video had also gone viral in December 2018 with the same claim. The Indian Express and The Times of India had reported on the video, adding that it was captured at a Congress rally in Rajasthan after the party won the Assembly elections in 2018. The articles also published Rajasthan police’s clarification on the same. 

The Rajasthan police had debunked the claim on their official X account (formerly Twitter) in December 2018. In a post, they wrote, “This video circulating on #socialmedia claims that there is a Pakistan flag being waved in a victory procession of @INCIndia. This is false, and we request people not to get trapped by this. We are trying to trace the mischief-maker (sic).”

A screenshot that shows the clarification posted by Rajasthan Police. (Source/X/Screenshot)

The above evidence establishes that the viral clip is from 2018 and does not show the Pakistan flag at a Congress rally.

The verdict

A five-year-old video has been recirculated with the false claim that a Pakistan flag was raised at a Congress rally in Rajasthan. The flag in the video is not the Pakistan flag. It is also unrelated to the 2023 state elections. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.