CLAIM

The waters of lake Mansarovar are so gentle, tranquil and calm. They give everything and lose nothing. Anyone can d… https://t.co/SwjRdq5UA5 — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) 1536122743000

The stunning beauty of lake Rakshas Tal. #KailashYatra https://t.co/GXYsR4hjAT — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) 1536153994000

A few Twitter users accused Gandhi of taking the photos of Rakhas Tal lake

from the internet and wondered if he's really gone on the pilgrimage.

VIRALITY

VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGY

VERDICT

A few Twitter users have been accusing Congress President Rahul Gandhi of sharing photos from the internet as that from his pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar.Rahul Gandhi, who is on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, has been tweeting photos from his trip. He first tweeted a couple of photos of the Mansarovar lake saying "There is no hatred here".Hours later, Gandhi tweeted two photos of the Rakhas Tal lake, with a caption "The stunning beauty of lake Rakhas Tal."Vikas Pandey, @MODIfiedvikas on Twitter, tweeted again saying his "friends" from Congress have been telling him his assumption is wrong, and shared what he found in his research.Priti Gandhi, National In-Charge of Social Media of BJP Mahila Morcha, tweeted the same image shared by Vikas Pandey. Priti, in her tweet, asked Rahul Gandhi, "Are you downloading pics from the internet and tweeting? Are you really at Mansarovar or some place else?"The editor of Post Card website, known for spreading fake news, Mahesh Vikram Hegde also tweeted the same image accusing Gandhi. Hegde asked, "Why Rahul Gandhi tweeting pictures off the internet? Is he somewhere else and pretending to be in Mansarovar? "Another Twitter user @being_humor also accused Rahul Gandhi of "lying" and happened to share the same image Vikas Pandey and Priti Gandhi shared.Vikas Pandey's tweet accusing Gandhi of plagiarism now has 2,000 retweets and nearly 3,000 likes. Priti Gandhi's tweet got 1,600 retweets and over 2,600 likes. @being_humor's tweet has, as of now, gotten 915 retweets and over 1,300 likes.Times Fact-Check team did a Google reverse-image search on both the photos tweeted by Rahul Gandhi. We found the same photo on two web portals -- Loktej and The Indian Awaaz -- carrying articles about Rahul Gandhi tweeting these pictures.We also found the photo Vikas Pandey tweeted, from an article on a website called Earth Tripper, and compared it with the photos Gandhi tweeted. On the left are the two photos tweeted by Rahul Gandhi and on the right is the photo from Earth Tripper. There is no doubt the photos are visually similar, but a close look at the clouds seen in the photos will prove these are indeed different photos.Some social media users who tried verifying the claim made by Priti Gandhi, Vikas Pandey and Maithun (@being_humor) did stumble up on the same image on Just Dial but we have found that it is from Rahul Gandhi's account on Just Dial.The Twitter user @being_humor accepted that he made a mistake by accusing Gandhi of plagiarism and tweeted saying, "Seems this image is from Rahul Gandhi’s profile on just dial, so I apologise for the error and deleting this tweet after it gets 500 RTs."Times Fact-Check team found the claims of people accusing Gandhi of sharing images from the internet as that from his Mansarovar Yatra false.