Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is on Europe’s Tour. During this tour, he participated in a discussion organized by the European Union Parliament. Subsequently, he has also met several members of the European Union Parliament.
By sharing a group photo of Rahul Gandhi with members of the European Union Parliament, many social media users are claiming that Rahul Gandhi has met an agent of Pakistani Intelligence Agency ISI.
A user named Shivam Tyagi (@ShivamSanghi12) shared this photo and wrote: “The person standing next to Rahul Gandhi is an agent of Pakistani ISI in Europe. Does the country need any other proof that whenever they go out of the country, anti-nationals come back by spreading fire….” (English Translation)
Many users are sharing this post and making similar claims
Fact-Check
To more gather information about the person who is being claimed as an agent of Pakistani ISI in the viral photo of Rahul Gandhi, the DFRAC team reverse-searched the photo. We found a tweet from the Twitter handle of Congress. Congress tweeted: “Shri @RahulGandhi at a round table with MEPs in the European Parliament, co-hosted by MEP Alviina Almetsa (Shadow Rapporteur on EU-India Relationship) and MEP Pierre Larrouturou (portfolios within Parliamentary budget, climate & employment generation)”.
After this, we investigated the social media account of Pierre Larroutourou (@larroutourou), co-organizer of Rahul Gandhi’s round table meeting. Larouturau stated in a tweet that Rahul Gandhi held a discussion with members of 7 different groups of the European Parliament.
Furthermore, we visited the website of the European Union Parliament and took a look at the list of members. In this list, we found the same person, who has being called as an agent of Pakistani ISI by users on social media. The name of this person is Fabio Massimo Castaldo, who is a member of the European Union Parliament. Not only this, but he has also served as the youngest Vice President of the European Union.
According to a report by www.treccani.it, Fabio Massimo Castaldo is an Italian Politician, After graduating in Italian and French law, he was an activist of the 5 Star Movement , joining the group of the IX Municipality of Rome. In 2013 he became a parliamentary collaborator of Paola Taverna , senator and spokesperson of the M5S. In 2014 he was elected European parliamentarian in the ranks of the M5S. He was a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission and the Constitutional Affairs Commission. In 2017 he was elected Vice-President of the European Parliament and in 2019 he was re-elected to the European Parliament and Vice-President.
Conclusion
It is evident from DFRAC’s Fact-Check the person who is being claimed as an agent of the Pakistani intelligence Agency ISI is a European Union Parliament member and former Vice President Fabio Massimo Castaldo, who is a resident of Italy. Therefore, the claims of social media users are misleading.
