No, This Photo Doesn't Show PM Modi With Home Minister Amit Shah in 1993

The original picture shows PM Narendra Modi posing for a picture with Dr Sanjiv Oza.

Fact-check |A picture of PM Modi standing with another person is being falsely shared as him standing with Union Minister Amit Shah. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

An old photograph, which shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing with another individual, is being shared on the internet with a claim that it shows Modi with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Social media users have shared this picture, which claims to be from 1993, with a caption that said, "Little did they know that in 1993, they would be the all-powerful men in India by 2014."

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

A second wind?: The same post was viral in May when PM Modi was on a Europe visit, with its first leg starting in Germany. Several social media users including filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma (archive here) shared the post with a similar claim. Other old archives can be accessed here and here.

What is the truth?: The picture does not show PM Modi posing with Amit Shah.

• The image is reportedly from 1993 and shows PM along with his colleague Dr Sanjiv Oza standing in front of Charlemagne's statue, the medieval emperor, who founded the Roman Empire.

• The state head of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Gujarat Media, Yagnesh Dave, confirmed the same to us.

How did we find out?: A simple reverse search on the image led us to a report published by NDTV in May, which said that this old picture resurfaced when PM Modi was on a visit to Europe. The picture was reportedly taken in 1993 when PM Modi was a BJP worker and did not hold any office.

• The report did not identify the other person in the picture and referred to him as Modi's colleague.

• The article also carried a tweet by ANI journalist Naveen Kapoor with the same picture. On going through the comments, we found a user had identified the other person as Sanjivbhai Oza.

• We looked for Oza's social media handles and found his profile on Facebook. In his profile, he mentioned that he worked for Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and has also served as the vice-chancellor of Gujarat Ayurveda University.

• A keyword search on ABVP Rajkot's Facebook page directed us to a post from April 2020. On comparing his photo with the viral image, we found several similarities.

A comparison between both the images show certain similarities.

(Source: ABVP Rajkot Facebook/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

Conclusion: An old image of PM Modi standing with Dr Sanjiv Oza is being falsely shared as him posing with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

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