Quote praising Rahul Gandhi misattributed to BJP stalwart L.K. Advani

What is the claim?

A post on social media claims that senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is the "future of Indian politics".

Several users, including the official account of Arunachal Congress, shared the post and wrote, “Rahul Gandhi is the hero of Indian politics: Lal Krishna Advani (LK Advani) (sic)." The post was accompanied by a link to one avadhboomi.com. Archived versions of such posts can be accessed here and here.

Screenshots of the viral posts. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, we found that the claim is false. The claim originated from a news article published by a dubious site and there is no evidence that Advani made any such comment.

How did we find the truth?

The caption of the viral post attributed the statement to a portal named avadhbhoomi.com. We looked up the site and found an article published in Hindi titled, "Rahul Gandhi is the hero of Indian politics: LK Advani". While the article, initially published on May 8, 2024, has now been deleted, an archived version can be seen here. 

The report states that Advani praised and said he has never seen an influential leader like Rahul Gandhi. The article doesn't mention details about where and when the comment was made. Further, a disclaimer (archive here) on the website states, "avadhbhumi.com does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability, and accuracy of this information." 

Next, we checked the social media handles linked to the website and found that the Facebook page (archive here) has no updates after March 3, 2024. Their Instagram account (archive here) hosts unrelated and seeminlgly personal videos, while their YouTube channel (archive here) has been removed by the platform for violating community guidelines. We have reached out to the portal and the story will be updated if and when we receive a response. 

Speaking to Logically Facts, Deepak Chopra, Advani's close aide, dismissed the claim and said, "Totally fake. Advani ji has nothing to do with it." We didn't even find any credible news report on the said statement.

The verdict

Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani didn’t say that Rahul Gandhi is the future of Indian politics. The claim originated from a now-deleted article published by one avadhbhumi.com. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.