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Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra, in a video message, had urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to permit 1,000 buses her party arranged to ferry migrant workers home on May 16. She later added that the buses were waiting at the Ghaziabad, Noida, and UP-Rajasthan border.
Following her appeal, an image showing hundreds of buses standing in a row on a highway started doing the rounds on social media claiming that these are the buses Gandhi arranged for the migrants. It was also claimed that CM Yogi had denied permission for them.
"Shameful. This is not a traffic jam. In Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi arranged 1,000 buses to take migrant workers home, but Yogi Ji has denied the permission (Translated to English)," reads one such caption.
Claim:
Viral images show the 1,000 buses Priyanka Gandhi arranged in Uttar Pradesh to bring migrants home.
Fact Check:
The claim is misleading. A reverse image search showed that the picture was originally taken at the Kumbh Mela held in Prayagraj in 2019.
News reports on the event carried the same image.
A report published by Financial Express on February 28, 2019, said that Uttar Pradesh government created a Guinness World Record for parading 500 special buses non-stop in Prayagraj.
The Quint also published a report on the event and said that it would have been the longest parade of buses across the globe.
The image was also published by NDTV on the same date. Therefore the viral pictures are definitely not from Priyanka Gandhi's efforts to get the stranded migrants home amid the nationwide lockdown.
On May 18, two days after accusing Priyanka Gandhi's appeal CM Yogi Adityanath agreed to her request to run 1,000 buses for migrant workers. The UP government sought details of the buses, their numbers and drivers' names.
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