Minister Accuses Congress of Posting Fake AI Crowd Photo

Indian Union Minister Kiren Rijiju has taken aim at the Congress party after it shared a crowd photograph from a recent opposition rally that has since been identified as AI-generated.

The photo, posted by Congress, purported to show a massive turnout at the 'Chalo Dilli' rally organised by the INDIA bloc, a coalition of opposition parties, at Ramlila Maidan, a historic public ground in Delhi frequently used for large political gatherings.

However, fact-checkers examining the image determined that it had not been taken at the event at all, but was instead generated using artificial intelligence tools capable of producing realistic but entirely synthetic crowd scenes.

Rijiju seized on the revelation to mock the opposition party, remarking that Congress 'can't even fake it right' — a jibe implying that the AI-generated image was not only dishonest but also unconvincing in its execution.

The episode has reignited a broader political dispute between the ruling party and Congress, with supporters on both sides exchanging accusations on social media over the authenticity of rally imagery and the scale of public support each side claims to command.

Crowd size has long been a contentious issue in Indian political discourse, with rival parties routinely disputing turnout figures at each other's events. The use of AI-generated imagery, however, introduces a new dimension to this rivalry, raising questions about the reliability of visual evidence shared by political actors.

The incident underscores a growing challenge facing journalists, fact-checkers, and the public: distinguishing authentic photographic evidence from increasingly sophisticated synthetic content produced by artificial intelligence. As such tools become more accessible, experts warn that misinformation involving fabricated images could become more frequent in political campaigns, potentially complicating public efforts to verify claims made by parties across the spectrum.

Neither Congress nor the INDIA bloc has issued a detailed public response addressing how the AI-generated image came to be shared on the party's official channels.