2016 Photo of Akhilesh Yadav Shared Falsely Linking it to Navratri

A photograph showing Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav distributing food to people seated on the ground is being shared on social media platforms. The photo, in which Yadav is wearing black footwear, is being shared by users to take a dig at him, with the claim that he was doing so during Navratri.

However, we found that the photo is old. It was posted to Akhilesh Yadav’s verified social media accounts in 2016, launching the ‘Hausala’ nutrition scheme.

The scheme was an initiative that started under Yadav’s governance in Uttar Pradesh, which aimed at providing hot and nutritious meals to pregnant women and malnourished children.

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CLAIM

The photo is being widely shared with the following claim in Hindi, taking a dig at Yadav.

“नवरात्रि मे जुता पहन कर कन्या को भोजन कराते अखिलेश यादव!!”

[Translation: Akhilesh Yadav served meals to girls during Navratri wearing shoes!!]

An archive of this tweet can be found here.

Other claims made with the same photo can be seen here, here and here.

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WHAT WE FOUND

We ran the photograph through Yandex’s reverse image search, which led us to tweet published by Akhilesh Yadav’s verified Twitter account on 15 July, 2016, when Yadav was chief minister of the state.

Launched Hausala Nutrition Scheme, which will provide hot nutritious meals to pregnant women & malnourished children pic.twitter.com/wy1n618FWI

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) July 15, 2016

The tweet noted that the photos were from the launch of the Hausala Nutrition Scheme in 2016, which “will provide hot nutritious meals to pregnant women and malnourished children.”

We looked up the former CM’s scheme for more information, and found an article by Times of India, published in 2016.

As per TOI, the government had set aside 700 crores for this scheme, which would aim at providing 10 lakh pregnant women and 14 lakh severely malnourished children at least one cooked meal, fruits and other necessary supplements at Aanganwadi centres, for six days a week.

Evidently, a photo from 2016 showing former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav serving food was shared on social media, where users claimed that he wore shoes while serving food to girls during the festival period of Navratri.

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