An image of the former captain of the Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, is being circulated online, claiming that he is advocating for voting for the Congress party. In the picture, Dhoni is seen donning the jersey of his Indian Premier League (IPL) team, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), while prominently displaying his left palm and gesturing the number ‘one’ with his right index finger.
The Facebook post reads: “Vote for Congress Dhoni bhai ne kiya ishaara Panjhe pe ungli dabao.”
The above post can be seen here. (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim, and found it to be False.
After conducting a Reverse Image Search, it was discovered that News 18 featured the photo in their report dated October 5, 2020, mentioning that Dhoni was commemorating CSK’s milestone of reaching six million followers on X (formerly Twitter) alongside his teammates.
Furthermore, we observed that the identical image was posted by CSK’s official social media accounts on October 5, 2020. The IPL franchise based in Chennai shared the photograph with the accompanying caption, “Nandri filled Thala Dharisanam as our Twitter fam becomes 6 Million Strong!”
The NM team also noticed another video shared by CSK on X, dated October 5, 2020, featuring additional cricketers from the franchise joining in to commemorate the team’s achievement of reaching the aforementioned milestone. The video’s caption expresses gratitude to all the devoted fans for their support over the past decade, sending appreciation and encouragement to them.
Hence, we can conclusively say that the old photo is falsely linked to the recent general elections in 2024.
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