BJP Leaders Share Photo of Dam in South India To Praise Development in UP

The dam in the claim is on the border of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and is built on top of the Krishna River.

The photo shows Srisailam Dam, which falls in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

Many Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including former MP Hari Om Pandey, shared an image on Twitter of a dam, praising Uttar Pradesh's Yogi Adityanath-led government for building projects to facilitate better irrigation in Bundelkhand.

The claim came shortly before Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a gathering in Mahoba, a district in UP's Bundelkhand region.

However, we found that the photo was of the Srisailam dam built on top of the Krishna river, which flows from Maharashtra and empties out into the Bay of Bengal in Andhra Pradesh. Many news reports carried the image, with some dating back to 2014.

CLAIM

The photo was shared by many BJP leaders, who spoke about the drought-prone region of Bundelkhand finally receiving irrigation aid via development projects "during visit by PM Modi ji and CM Yogi ji".

They also shared the claim with the hashtag 'बुलन्द बुन्देलखण्ड'.

An archived version of this post can be accessed here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The same image was shared by many BJP leaders such as MLA Bamba Lal Diwakar from Unnao, Ravindra Nath Tripathi, and BJP MLA from Bihar Anil Kumar.

Archived versions of more such claims can be seen here, here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

After cropping the image to isolate the dam's photo, we ran a reverse image search, which suggested that the photo could be that of the Srisailam dam in Andhra Pradesh.

We found many news reports that carried the photo from the claim, including one by Deccan Chronicle, which was published in 2014 and noted that the photo showed the Srisailam dam.

The eight-year-old article carries the same photo, identifying it as Srisailam dam.

(Source: Deccan Chronicle/Altered by The Quint)

All news reports that we came across with this image, discussed two dams built on the Krishna River that originates in Maharashtra and empties into the Bay of Bengal in Andhra Pradesh after passing through Karnataka and Telangana.

This report by The News Minute spoke about the Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam dams, both of which fall on the border of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

It reported on the water being released from the Srisailam dam, which would make its way to the Nagarjuna Sagar dam downstream after the former reached capacity following flash floods in Andhra Pradesh in 2019.

We also came across the same image on Telangana State Road Transport Corporation's (TSRTC) website, under 'Tour Packages'. Here, the photo was used in a section offering a tour from 'Hyderabad to Nagarjun Sagar'.

TSRTC's website carries the same photo.

(Source:TSRTC/Screenshot)

We then looked for visuals of projects that Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched in the Bundelkhand region, and found a video uploaded to his verified YouTube channel regarding the same.

It showed visuals of different projects in the region, such as waterways, dams, and bridges. None of the visuals in the video matched the photo in the claim.

Clearly, a photo of Srisailam dam on the Krishna river, on the border of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, was shared as one from Uttar Pradesh's Bundelkhand, built to tackle irrigation problems in the area.

(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)

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