Created By Newschecker.in
Co-Published By LokmatTimes.com
A picture of a purported boarding pass of a Vistara flight on June 5, allegedly booked for Bangkok in the name of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, has gone viral on social media. The screenshot of the alleged boarding pass was shared on the day various exit poll surveys predicted a massive victory for the BJP-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. This article aims to fact-check the validity of this claim.
Fact: The Viral image claimed to show Rahul Gandhi’s boarding pass for a Vistara Flight to Bangkok on June 5 found to be digitally altered. Newschecker first noticed two different flight numbers were mentioned on the boarding pass, indicating that it may have been digitally altered. Newschecker then ran a reverse image search of the photo, which led us to a similar image in this column for LiveFromALounge.com, an online platform that publishes news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, and travel trends.The column, headlined, “Onboard Vistara To Singapore: The first Vistara international flight ever!”, dated August 7, 2019, was written by Ajay Awtaney, the founder and editor of Live From A Lounge.
“Having flown the first flight of Vistara domestically back in 2015, it was a done deal that I was going to fly them internationally as well on the first flight. Finally, the airline announced international operations in July 2019, and the first international flight was operated between Delhi and Singapore yesterday, on which I flew,” read the column. A comparison of the viral image (left) with Awtaney’s photo of his boarding pass (right) confirms it was the same image that has been morphed.
Newschecker also reached out to Awtaney, who said, “I can confirm the original image was lifted from my website LiveFromALounge.com and edited. I flew with Vistara between Delhi and Singapore on the occasion of their first international flight in July 2019.”
This story was originally published by Newschecker, and republished by LokmatTimes.com as part of the Shakti Collective.